Spring 2008 - Issue 4

TUFTS OBSERVER TUFTS’ STUDENT MAGAZINE

MARCH 7, 2008

The Great Eight of ’08: Tufts Seniors You Should Know Also: Big Dig Wraps Up | Satisfying Your Sweet Tooth

Featured Articles

FEATURE

| Senior Citizens — Eight Interesting Seniors Among Us

NEWS

Boston Bridge is falling down…

ARTS

The retelling of an old tale: Julius Caesar

8 29

OPINION

Going green without spending green

EXCURSIONS

New ways to satisfy your sweet tooth

The Observer has been Tufts’ weekly publication of record since 1895. Our dedication to in-depth reporting, journalistic innovation, and honest dialogue has remained intact for over a century. Today, we offer insightful news analysis, cogent and diverse opinion pieces, and lively reviews of current arts, entertainment, and sports. Through poignant writing and artistic elegance, we aim to entertain, inform, and above all challenge the Tufts community to effect positive change.

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Editors

Contents

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Mara Sacks

7 March 2008

MANAGING EDITORS Lydia Hall Patrick Roath Mike Snyder EDITORIAL EDITOR Peter Shaeffer NEWS EDITORS Daniel Rosen Joshua Aschheim OPINION EDITOR William Ramsdell ARTS AND EXCURSIONS EDITORS Michael Tucker Eliza Walters CAMPUS EDITOR Molly Posner ART DIRECTOR Natalie Polito PHOTO EDITOR Erin Baldassari ONLINE EDITOR Matthew Koulouris COPY EDITOR Julie Lonergan EDITORS EMERITI Timothy Noetzel Michael Skocay

Staff

Alexander Dietz Sarah Leenen Lauren Mazel Brian McLoone Michael Schecht Julia Slocum Ryan Stolp

Volume CXVI, Issue 4 The Observer, Since 1895 www.TuftsObserver.org

Feature 2 The Great Eight of ’08, by Joshua Aschheim, Molly Posner, and Eliza Walters News 8 9 10 12

Big Dig Ends in Big Mess, by Loren Austen Speedy Filesharing Makes a Brief Appearance, by Daniel Wittles Spring Break: Swapping Beers for Hammers and Nails, by Brendan Johannsen Inside Tufts: The International Community, by Jonathan Dinerstein

Opinion 15 I Should Have Waited for the DVD, by Lauren Mazel 16 Ramsdell’s Ramblings, by William Ramsdell 21 So…Who’s Right on Healthcare Anyway?, by Michael Steinberg 23 8 Pillars of Moroccan Environmentalism, by Mike Snyder Arts and Excursions 26 The Top 10 TV Guilty Pleasures, by Michael Tucker 27 The Adventures of Petey & Chuck: A Comic Strip, by Ryan Stolp 28 Too New? A Review of the New Museum of Contemporary Art,

by Rachel Tan

29 30 31 32

A Retelling of an Old Tale — Julius Caesar on Stage, by Brian McLoone A Luxurious Treat: Tea at Upstairs on the Square, by Lauren Lee Petsi Pies: A Bakery Lover’s Heaven, by Emily Roitman Techno Night at Phoenix Landing, by Chinua Green

Poetry and Prose 33 This City, Now Country, by Kristen Surya 34 On Time, by Alex Blum In Every Issue 14 Editorial 25 Ticker Tape, by Molly Posner 36 Campus RYAN STOLP

COVER PHOTO: NICK DYNAN

PARTING SHOT: ERIN BALDASSARI

Contributing Writers, Artists, and Photographers Loren Austen Kelsey Bell Alex Blum Jonathan Dinerstein Nick Dynan

Jwala Gandhi Chinua Green Brendan Johannsen Lauren Lee Lauren Mazel

Emily Roitman Michael Steinberg Kristen Surya Rachel Tan Daniel Wittles

FEATURE

The

08

Great eat Eightt of

BY JOSH

I

ASCHHEIM, MOLLY POSNER, AND ELIZA WALTERS

n a university that has changed so much over the past four years, seniors run the risk of being lost in the dust. But how many Tufts students can claim to have interned at a professional baseball franchise, fashioned their own handicrafts and started their own jewelry company, and been the first white president of the Japanese Culture Club? Although Grad Schools might focus on GPA and test scores, many graduating seniors like the ones featured here are performing captivating research, playing obscure sports, traveling to seldom-heard-of countries, and cultivating outlandish hobbies. Too often these students, who are literally extraordinary, graduate without being recognized.

To publicize the exploits of these students in our midst, The Observer asked members of the Tufts community to nominate members of the class of 2008 who they felt stood out for their remarkable interests, circumstances, achievements, and pursuits. After reviewing numerous applications, The Observer chose the following Great Eight of ’08:

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THE OBSERVER

March 7, 2008

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One of the things I’ve learned at Tufts is how my mind works.

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Peter Bendix

Pete Bendix Peter Pe Peter ter Bendix Bendix, tto put it simply, is a baseball fanatic. natic. He ha has dedicated the majority of hiss college caree ca career to the sport and is now trying ing to purs pursue th the nearly impossible — a career wor working for a professional baseball team. T This America American Studies major said that he has “always bee been a big fan of sports,” but doesn’t want to work for a baseball team simply because of his fandom. Instead, he seeks to ex explore th the business and analytical side of the sport. sp “One of tthe things I’ve learned at Tufts,” Bendix no n noted, “is how my mind works.” ks.” This know knowledge of the self is the connecting cting thread tthrough all of the different interests ests Bendix has explored throughout his time at Tufts. SSpecifically, he explained, he has come realize that his strength lies ome to rea in analyzing information, synthesizing it, and zing inform applying distinct types of knowledge towards ng typ onee goal. In th this way way, it is possible to see how both his co concentration on race and education concentrati under the interdisciplinary major of Ameriunde interdisci can Studies and his love for all aspects of baseball can be related.

But how did Bendix transform from your average Cleveland Indians fan to a criti-

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cal student of the quintessentially American industry? It all started during an Ex-College class he took during his freshman year, called “Statistics of Baseball.” This highly soughtafter class has a research component, which ended up changing the course of Bendix’s experience here at Tufts. His research, which investigated whether or not Leo Mazzone is actually the best pitching coach in baseball, was featured in a New York Times article and allowed him to travel to Toronto the summer after his freshman year to present the findings at the Social American Baseball Research conference.

After the course, Bendix was hooked.

He started the club Baseball Analysis at Tufts (BAT), which now boasts about 50 members and holds events such as lectures from sports writers and business professionals of the field. Bendix has also interned in the corporate sponsorships department of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, and co-taught a freshman Explorations class called “The Business of Baseball.” Inspired by his own studies, Bendix examined this topic through an interdisciplinary lens, focusing on issues such as globalization, economics, and the media.

Even though Bendix wears multiple caps while at Tufts, he wishes to pursue a career as part of the operations of a professional baseball team. “It is a balance,” he said cautiously, “between pursuing my dreams and being realistic.”

Kristen Dorsey While other students are studying for organic chemistry or writing political science papers, Kristen Dorsey toils on the forge, twisting and reshaping metal. She is a dual-degree student and takes classes both at Tufts and at the SMFA. Although

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she majors in American Studies here and focuses her attention on jewelry making at the museum school, she does not see her two degrees as unrelated. Rather, Dorsey said, “I use my academics to inspire my art.”

Dorsey is a member of the Chickasaw Nation, which is a Native American tribe of southeastern origin that is now located in Oklahoma. Inspired by her heritage, interest in jewelry making, and academic concentration in Native American studies, Dorsey’s thesis project involves an apprenticeship program for young Chickasaw artists. This project seeks to teach the young artists how to create contemporary jewelry by utilizing ancient Chickasaw techniques.

The program centers on the visual culture of the Chickasaw nation, which is central to the traditions of the tribe. This aspect of the culture, according to Dorsey, has been neglected and forgotten due to the oppression that the tribe has undergone throughout its tumultuous history. By creating the apprenticeship program, Dorsey “wanted to bring back pieces of culture that were not lost, but forgotten because of the trauma,” she explained.

The program will reach out to thousands of Chickasaw youth with the aim of closing the

Ever ything is r elated for me.

Everything is a practice in design and helps me grow as an artist.

Kristen Dorsey March 7, 2008

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THE OBSERVER

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Mark Leekoff

The coolest part of his artificial ear is that it has a telecoil that can pick up the sound waves of iPod headphones or cell phone speakers.

opportunity gap that exists for young artists who have had oppressed backgrounds. Currently, the Chickasaw nation is experiencing a “cultural renaissance” as more young people are reconnecting with their cultural heritage.

In conjunction with this movement, Dorsey hopes her internship project will reeducate disconnected tribe members about the cultural significance behind the traditional designs.

When Dorsey isn’t reaching out to the Chickasaw Nation’s youth, she shapes pieces for her own jewelry line, Neria Designs. The line, which takes its name from the Greek mythology term for sea nymphs, is comprised of organic-looking jewelry and seeks to spread awareness about environmental issues. Dorsey, a Californian surfer who loves the ocean, has partnered with the non-profit organization Heal the Bay to help raise money for environmental causes.

So, how does it all connect? Dorsey said, “Everything is related for me. Everything is a practice in design and helps me grow as an artist.”

Ketan Gajria Five years from now, Ketan Gajria

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might be working for the U.S. government in the Middle East…officially or otherwise.

Gajria has always wanted to pursue a career in government. One might then wonder why the psychology major, Arabic minor isn’t a political science or an IR major. To that, Gajria said, “It would be naïve for me as a freshman to say I want to model my life around getting [a specific] job. The hope is that I can do the job I want while doing what I enjoy. It’s more important to develop skills and then see where you fit in, rather than decide on one single path.”

Gajria’s passion is for the Arabic language, which he finds intriguing and exciting. He started taking Arabic his freshman year, and it clicked. “It’s an amazing thing in terms of studies when you find a subject in which you are learning and having fun at the same time,” said Gajria.

Since beginning Arabic his freshman year, Gajria has studied abroad in Jordan and has done professional translation work for the past two summers. Gajria said that living in Jordan for a semester really bolstered what his professors call his unusual ability to speak the language so fluently. He said, “I really encouraged [my home stay family] to have an Arabic-only rule. Upon going to another country you realize how little you know, but also you’re encouraged to learn more.”

Gajria will again be living abroad next year — he plans to move to Syria to complete a language program in Damascus.

After that Gajria hopes to secure a government job through which he can apply his Arabic skills.

However, Arabic isn’t Gajria’s only

Language is a way to bring different cultures here to America; language is a way to connect.

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Ketan Gajria March 7, 2008

interest, and working for the government isn’t the only thing he could see himself doing. He is a traveler, a member of the wind ensemble, and an amateur photographer.

“What I always thought was that I had a good visual sense of things — a good eye for things that are visually interesting. Photography is something that I can do myself.

I got a cheap film camera my freshman year, brought it to Barcelona, and got very interested in photography,” Gajria said.

And should his plans to work for the government change or fall through, Gajria said, “If I had the natural talent, I would love to be a movie director.” He also thinks that being a foreign correspondent for National Public Radio would be a great way to use his Arabic to help others. He said, “Language is a way to bring different cultures here to America; language is a way to connect.” Wherever Gajria may end up in the future, rest assured he will be enjoying himself. “When you find something you like, it opens up a world of possibilities.”

Mark Leekoff Mark Leekoff was born deaf in both

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Scholarship, and the Optimist Club Oratorical Contest.

An early and intimate appreciation for the benefits of modern medicine fueled Leekoff ’s passion for medicine. He currently volunteers as a patient escort at Massachusetts General Hospital every week. “As a senior, I have a little bit of extra time…I just love interacting with people,” he noted. He is also an organic chemistry tutor and a teaching assistant for Biology 14. “I love it. People here think I’m crazy for loving it, but [organic chemistry] is just a passion of mine,” he said. Leekoff has shadowed doctors, conducted research, and been involved in the clinical environment since high school. “While it is true that Mark is also deaf, that is only a small component of what makes Mark one of the unique people I have encountered, and one of my best friends,” said his housemate Matthew Diffey.

A lot of people underestimate the resources at Tufts.

Make your ideas a reality.

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ears, but was not actually diagnosed with the disability until he was 17 months old. “It wasn’t until my grandparents [accidentally] dropped a pot next to me and I didn’t respond that anybody suspected something was wrong,” Leekoff recalled. When he was four years old, the National Institutes of Health, a medical research center, chose Leekoff to be a test subject for one of the earliest childhood cochlear implants, a surgical device that simulates a human ear by collecting sound waves through a microphone. The device then magnetically sends this information to a magnetic receiver on the inside of the head, which then stimulates nerves for the brain to interpret. Leekoff recalls the procedure as “extremely scary. When the implant was first activated I kept on turning it off because it just sounded like loud static.” Over time, his nerves became accustomed to the sound signals, and the noises turned into clear sounds.

Though the pioneering procedure was successful, the implant is not hassle free. “I always carry two spare sets of batteries with me just in case something goes wrong,” he explained, pulling out a pack of spare silver batteries from his back pocket. Leekoff goes through about 300 of the small batteries each year, but enjoys some of the piece’s perks. He explains that the coolest part of his artificial ear is that it has a telecoil that can pick up the sound waves of iPod headphones or cell phone speakers. This information is then transmitted directly to his nerves, allowing him to hear digital signals in a crowded area.

The only problem: “It’s usually so loud that

the other person can’t hear me because there is so much extra noise.”

Despite his condition, Leekoff is an accomplished student. Since childhood he has attended hearing schools, in deference to his doctor’s order to “get him into a sign school [for the deaf] as soon as possible.” He has been honored on the Dean’s List during every semester that he has been at Tufts, and has won the Alexander Graham Bell 75 Stars Award, Alexander Graham Bell College Scholarship, Cochlear Americas Graeme Clark

Marissa Maren Despite the rigors of the requirementheavy engineering major, Marissa Maren, a Bhangra dancer and marathon runner, has found the time to discover her passions and make a difference. And surprisingly, her plans for the future don’t include working for an engineering firm.

Rather, with a minor in entrepreneurial leadership, she plans to work in finance next year. Maren said, “As [my coursework] progressed, I realized solving business problems

On campus, he joined the Japanese Culture Club and became the first white president.

Charlie McClean March 7, 2008

THE OBSERVER

5

Kendall Swett

By transferring to Tufts, Swett was agreeing to spend a good deal of time in close quarters with her long-time adversary.

is more interesting to me because those problems are al about people. I love working through those challenges, as opposed to solving technical problems. Finance is a hybrid of my studies — business but still mathematical.”

But Maren is by no means all business.

She has found ways to develop her other interests, study abroad, and make a difference across the world. Maren is a member of the Ghana Gold Colloquium, a study program devoted to learning about the gold mining industry in Ghana. The group traveled to Ghana on what she calls a two-week “multifaceted visit,” learning about corporate responsibility as it relates to the gold mining industry. Maren welcomed the opportunity the trip presented. “Academically, since I’m an engineering major, the opportunity to take a class like that is more difficult, she said.

She also traveled to China and India, where she exchanged in a cross-cultural exchange, through the Tufts Initiative for Leadership & International Perspective (TILIP).

Additionally, she studied abroad through the Tufts in Talloires program. Maren said

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that traveling and seeing the world have become two of her greatest passions, and have positively influenced her experience at Tufts.

She explained, “Traveling makes my learning more meaningful. It has planted in me a seed of curiosity, engaging the world around me, and learning about different cultures and people, which is something I feel has become one of my passions. I find myself going to different cultural events that I wouldn’t have tried otherwise. It has really helped me understand where other people are coming from.”

And though Maren plans to pursue finance in New York City next year, she said noted that she can also see herself doing “non-profit, on the ground development” or teaching in the more distant future. In addition to professional aspirations, Maren is determined to continue her world travels.

“One thing I do know is that I want to live in as many places as possible,” she said.

Charlie McClean Charlie McClean’s passion for Japan does not come from a childhood dream or family traditions. It was sparked by a trip he took with two friends to Tokyo after their high school graduation. Although McClean did not know it at the time, this trip would influence him in a very fundamental way. Now a senior at Tufts, he is writing a thesis on Japanese foreign aid and Indonesia, and is a finalist for a Fulbright grant in Japan for next year. So how did he get from Point A, a trip halfway across the world with some friends, to Point B, a dedicated student of

Traveling makes my lear ning more meaningful; it has planted in me a seed of curiosity.

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Marissa Maren 6

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March 7, 2008

Japanese language, culture and history?

When McClean first came to Tufts, he, like many other freshmen, didn’t have a plan. Inspired by his summer trip, he enrolled in international relations and Japanese language classes. From there, a budding passion burst into full bloom as McClean became ever more dedicated to his studies of Japanese culture. On campus, he joined the Japanese Culture Club (JCC) and became the first white president. A large part of his experience here, McClean noted, has been characterized by “being involved in the Asian community at Tufts and not being Asian.” McClean, however, didn’t let the usual racial boundaries stand in his way. He studied abroad for a semester in Japan and was able to stay for the summer afterward as well, winning a Columbia research grant to work with a Japanese NGO and help the non-profit organization with translating and event planning.

What’s next for this San Francisco native? To start, he has already been accepted into a masters program at Harvard Uni-

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versity to focus on East Asian studies. He has considered deferring enrollment for a year, however, because of the possibility of receiving a Fulbright Award, which would allow him to conduct a year long research project on foreign aid and civil society in Japan. McClean refuses to map out too much beyond than his “three-year” plan, though. “I think really differently now than I did three years ago, and in three years I know I’ll think really differently than I do now,” he mused.

And although he admitted, “It’s funny that a trip I took in high school is determining what I do now,” McClean has certainly evolved from a high school tourist.

Nicki Sobecki How do you combine art, politics, and international studies? Nicki Sobecki has found a way to pull it off. As a political science major, as well as a five-year dual degree student with the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA), Sobecki hasn’t lost touch with her creative side. Rather, she has found ways to fuse all of her interests through international journalism, including written, photo, and video. She hopes to work in the field of journalism after graduation.

“Journalism has been a theme throughout my time at Tufts,” she recalled.

Through journalism, Sobecki has had the opportunity to “interpret things for the general public” while developing her intellectual and creative sides. At Tufts, Sobecki is a member of EXPOSURE, which advocates human rights through photojournalism and documentary studies. “The experiences I’ve had through EXPOSURE have been pivotal to my experience at Tufts,” she said. “It has given me the chance to expand upon what I’ve learned in the classroom through an exploration of the realities on the ground.

It’s also a way to meet students with similar interests.”

Sobecki has also done much in the way of journalism off campus and abroad. Last spring, she took a semester off and lived abroad in Lebanon while working for the Beirut Daily Star. She found this particular experience especially rewarding. “Lebanon is

a nexus of so many issues the Middle East is facing. Since it was the summer of a refugee crisis I was trying to tell the story as it was occurring at the time,” she explained.

Sobecki has also traveled to Rwanda, Cambodia, and Uganda to study social justice issues and perform interesting research through her journalism lens. She has made a difference while pursuing her dreams and has even been able to obtain a significant amount of research money to fund her various endeavors.

Sobecki has taken advantage of all of the resources that Tufts has to offer, and her passion for social change will not stop upon graduation. She said, “A lot of people underestimate the resources at Tufts. Make your ideas a reality.”

Kendall Swett Kendall Swett, a transfer student and museum studies major, faced a dilemma when she considered coming to Tufts. An accomplished diver, Swett was torn between her wish to study at Tufts and her longtime, sometimes bitter, rivalry with a member of Tufts’ swimming team.

Described by her teammates as “an amazing person, an incredible teammate, and an even more incredible friend,” Swett

came to Tufts from Lake Forest University in Illinois in the fall of her junior year.

Although she was happy at Lake Forest, “they only had two art history professors. I simply couldn’t take enough art classes,” she explained. During her search for a college that offered more options for prospective art students, Swett stumbled upon Tufts.

Although she had never visited the school, Tufts was a clear choice with its 17 art history professors and its close affiliation with the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (SMFA). When she discusses her post-graduate plans, her passion for the arts is unwavering. “I definitely want to work in a museum, but first I am going to get a museum studies masters’ degree,” she said.

Academically, transferring to Tufts was an obvious choice. For Swett’s diving career, however, it “was a huge transition.” Swett’s life has revolved around competitive diving every since she was eight years old; she first started competing in junior nationals at the age of 11.

For an impressive four years of her high school career, Swett earned the title of All-American Diver.

As a freshman attending the NCAA national championships, Swett came in second to her arch rival, Doria Holbrook of MIT. However, as a sophomore, Swett pulled off an upset, earning the prestigious title of NCAA national diving champion. By transferring to Tufts, whose diving team practices with the MIT diving team, Swett was agreeing to spend a good deal of time in close quarters with her long-time adversary. “When I first came to Tufts she was not too excited to have me around. It was like going to a meet every night,” Swett recalled. “She would jump high, and I would jump higer.” But, as time went on, the competitors learned to accept that they had to practice with each other, and Swett’s own diving career continued to flourish. Most recently, she won “Diver of the Meet” and broke her personal record both twice within the same day. “It was an amazing meet,” she remembered. “Diving at Tufts has taught me so much about who I am. I’m just so glad I found it.” O Photos by Nick Dynan.

March 7, 2008

THE OBSERVER

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effi fo no to do tha en wi Bo

NEWS

Big Dig Ends in Big Mess

un mo sp art ch aft Gr fro bo an de pa no wi Bo sp ele vib

BY

LOREN AUSTEN

O

ver the past decade, the Big Dig has been an unavoidable part of Boston urban life. Unavoidable both in the literal sense that construction often crippled the flow of traffic in and out of the city, but also in that the Big Dig became a kind of seemingly interminable curse to which Massachusetts had been subjected.

For more than a decade, Bostonians coped with the inconvenience and unpleasantness of the Big Dig. One of the largest public works projects in history, the development ballooned in price as well as duration and finally came to an end this past December when the Massachusetts Transportation Authority (MTA) and contractor Bechtel/ Parsons Brinckerhoff formally ended their partnership. After sixteen years, the Big Dig has finally been dug.

The Boston Beer Works restaurant, located next to Fenway Park, offers a “Big Dig” Brownie, a landfill of chocolate, confections, and ice cream that is billed 8

THE OBSERVER

March 7, 2008

as “16.5 billion dollars of flavor for only $6.” It is likely that the caloric bill of this sundae is as large as the inflated price tag of the Big Dig: 14.6 billion dollars. While the restaurant does overestimate the final cost of this great Northeastern public works debacle, their comparison is more apt than the average microbrew-guzzling Red Sox fan may realize. The Big Dig, conceived as a sweet solution to the city’s transportation ills, proved to be a jumbled morass that has taken much longer to finish than expected.

Looking back on this project — which the MTA compares to the construction of the Panama Canal and the Chunnel — it’s hard not to ask “Was it worth it?”

“Now that it’s done, of course I think it’s great,” said David Cheeseman, a North End business owner who has been in the area since the 1960s. “But if you had asked me two years ago, or two months ago, I probably would have given you a different answer.” Started in 1991, the Big Dig was originally slated to be completed by 2003.

The original estimated price of around

MATTHEW KOULOURIS

eight billion dollars quickly proved to be too low. “At one point they had to close down the sidewalk, so people couldn’t even see my store,” he explained ƒrmany of his neighbors feel that it will take “a couple of decades of enjoying this before we forget the couple of decades of hating it.”

According to Mac Daniels, an MTA spokesman, the average drive time across Boston has been reduced from almost 20 minutes to only two. The completion of the Big Dig also allows for direct road access to Logan Airport and the Western Turnpike, as well as directing route I-90 through the Ted Williams Tunnel.

Safety issues have plagued the last stages of construction and overshadowed some of the project’s benefits. But even the terror of plummeting ceiling tiles is partially allayed by the fact that the accident rate on the old deteriorating elevated highway was four times the national average for urban interstates. Daniels also notes that with the Big Dig, the city can expect many “ancillary benefits.” Ease and

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efficiency of travel provides “an incentive for businesses to locate here,” Daniels noted, “something that may be of interest to [college students] during this economic downturn.” Additionally, Daniels added that the Big Dig has “significantly reduced environmental costs” as well as air pollution within the city. Yet the Big Dig has also made Boston “greener” in a more tangible way.

By moving the central road artery underground, the Big Dig has created more than 300 acres of open landscaped space. Taking the place of the old central artery is a system of parks that has been christened the Rose Kennedy Greenway, after Senator Ted Kennedy’s mother. The Greenway is composed of parks that stretch from the North End to Chinatown and border such landmarks as Quincy Market and the Freedom Trail. At an official dedication ceremony of the North End parks, Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick noted that the “the Rose Kennedy Greenway will transform the heart and character of Boston in so many ways; we have taken a space that previously hosted an outdated elevated steel highway and turned it into a vibrant park.”

Daniels noted that the “jury is still out on what kind of impact the Greenway will have on the city,” but agreed that “anything is better than a rusting piece of elevated highway.

Already we are getting kudos from people and businesses in these neighborhoods.”

He added, “The North End Park, which opened last fall, has provided a widely utilized park location in a part of the city where there is limited g reen space.” Echoing Cheeseman’s appraisal that these benefits will take time to take their full effect, Daniels noted that “these parks

MICHAEL SCHECHT

are going to have to mature before they become a real intrinsic part of the public landscape.” O

Speedy File sharing Makes a Brief Appearance BY

I

DANIEL WITTLES

t always seemed too good to be true.

Since arriving at Tufts earlier this year, the Tufts Direct Connect digital service has offered students free music, movies, and television shows in what administrators of the service claimed to be an alternative to expensive download sites like iTunes and Rhapsody. Although its administrators never claimed that Direct Connect was legal, they consistently claim that “Direct Connect is more private than Limewire or Bittorrent,” and therefore harder to track.

Recently, however, the service has been shut down, raising questions and concern from the student body.

Direct Connect has been active for over six years, and the service quickly became popular when introduced to Tufts.

While the exact numbers of users are unknown, a Facebook group promoting the application boasts a membership of over 600 users. Students’ opinions differ on the true number of users, with estimates from as low as 15 percent to one freshman convinced that up to 60 percent of students

at Tufts used the service. Although signs such as the Facebook group point to this estimate being higher than the true number of users, it seems as if a majority of the population has been exposed to Direct Connect in some capacity. Although a number of reasons kept people from utilizing DC++, one student believes most people who avoid it do so because “they didn’t believe that illegal services like that were a good thing.”

Whether avid users or innocent bystanders, most students knew that the service was illegal. According to one freshman girl, who will remain anonymous to protect her identity, “I think someone who thinks that this isn’t illegal is a complete idiot.” A frequent user herself, she added, “obviously it’s illegal to download things for free.” Yet when asked why she participated in the service, she said, “It was a really cool program that allowed for intra-school unity,” and was clearly disappointed that the service was shut down.

Why is the Tufts administration choosing to take action now? In an email sent to the student body on February 12, the

Office of Student Affairs claimed that they “have seen a huge increase in Direct Connect traffic. This semester we have also seen a three-fold increase in complaints against students coming from outside the University; from the RIAA, HBO, MPAA and others.” In fact, it has recently been reported that over 400 letters were sent out by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) to students across the country offering the accused “the opportunity to avoid a potential lawsuit by settling out of court.” Listed among the many schools attended by students who received letters was Tufts.

Although this is only one of many batches of letters to go out across the country, and only the most recent crop to reach Tufts, those receiving letters are still in for an unpleasant experience. Out of almost 6,000 letters sent in the past two years, over 2,300 students have settled with the industry. Another 2,400 had a formal lawsuit brought against them. One suit that has gone through the entire court process ended with over $200,000 in penalties for downloading a mere 24 songs.

March 7, 2008

THE OBSERVER

9

RYAN STOLP

As their fate lies in the balance, it seems as if the administrators of Direct Connect will not stop pursuing free music sources.

Even now, after Direct Connect has been shut down, the administrators have posted information on the Facebook group help-

ing students utilize a service called Ruckus to illegally decrypt the music available legally on that site. According to Ruckus’ website (www.ruckus.com), “Ruckus.com is the leader in the digital media space offering college students a unlimited free downloads from a music library of over 2.5 million tracks and over 4,000 movies and TV programs. Ruckus music downloads are 100% legal, virus-free and available to anyone who has a valid school (.edu) email address.” However, the group outlines a plan to remove the DRM, which is used as a method of protecting the music. Although he claims to not endorse the stealing of music, a former administrator of DC++ clearly outlined the steps necessary to accomplish this and even provides all the links necessary in a message to members of the Facebook group.

Whatever the case may be, those users of Direct Connect will surely find a new way to enjoy music and movies freely. As one former user said, “if there’s any way of getting [Direct Connect] back up, I’m all for it.” O

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Spring Break: Swapping Beers for Hammers and Nails BY

BRENDAN JOHANNSEN

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ith the EPIIC Symposium on Poverty and Inequality over, many Tufts students are looking to get their next fix of active citizenship. Lucky for them, there is a host of other student groups around to keep students engaged. This March, while many Jumbos return home or live it up in Mexico for spring break, many here at Tufts have organized “volunteer vacations,” planning to spend their downtime in the service of others.

Numerous organizations on campus are planning alternative Spring Break trips, and The Observer took a close look at two of them.

The Leonard Carmichael Society (LCS), an on-campus charity group, has planned a trip to New Orleans, Louisiana. There, they will work with Habitat for Humanity, a non-profit organization, to build homes for pre-Hurricane Katrina residents trying to resettle their families and reconstruct their lives. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina ripped

through New Orleans, flooding 53 of the city’s levees, which resulted in the flooding of approximately 80 percent of the city. Hundreds of residents died in the hurricane, while over 100,000 more were displaced around the country. Now, as the city struggles for revival, the local chapter of Habitat for Humanity is

For some, the best part about the trip is that the university helps offset the costs. Each trip participant is responsible only for their airfare to and from New Orleans, with LCS footing the bill for food, lodging, and group activities during the participants’ downtime.

The group also plans to meet with local of-

Participants will have the opportunity to not only work in these regions, but experience life in them as well

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leading an unprecedented rebuilding effort as the largest homebuilder within the New Orleans area. They have constructed over 100 houses over the last year, and anticipate similar amounts in the years to come. “It’s an amazing opportunity to help those who, because of their current situation, can’t help themselves right now,” says one trip participant. “I can’t imagine a better way to spend a week.”

”

ficials to learn about the relief efforts at the local and national levels. This opportunity has the potential to not only increase action on the ground, but increase awareness around the country as well, as LCS leaders hope to bring the experience back and share it with the entire Tufts community. When applying for the program, each student had to submit a proposal on how to best debrief the Tufts population on the LCS experience after the

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trip. Such a process did not seem to daunt most, though, as the program received over 40 applicants for less than half that number of slots. All the applicants were qualified, and according to the Volunteer Vacations Committee, it was a long and difficult process deciding who would be on the trip. The group will spend one week working in New Orleans, returning home just long enough to pack their things and head back to Tufts.

Many volunteers do not plan on returning home at all, flying directly from Boston to Louisiana and back again.

increase funding and U.S. action with regards to human rights, global health, and poverty.

In Guatemala, Hillel is working with the organization Fundacion Nueva Esperanza (Foundation for New Hope, FNE), which provides educational resources to young people living in extreme poverty among the Maya Achi groups of Guatemala. This ethnic group is perhaps best known as the victim of a government-sponsored genocide and forced migration program, which was engineered by the Guatemalan government to make way for a hydroelectric dam to be built

make the flooding particularly fierce in this region.

What makes the Hillel project unique, however, is the level of involvement that students will gain with the local communities.

AJWS, which is co-funding the trip along with Tufts Hillel, has arranged for students to work side-by-side with the local communities on this project. Such an opportunity highlights the most significant aspect of both of these highlighted trips: the fact that participants will have the opportunity to not only work in these regions, but experience

Tufts Hillel, carrying on its tradition of being an active presence both on and off the Tufts campus, is sending a group of eleven students on a trip to Guatemala.

Hillel has partnered with American Jewish World Service (AJWS), an “international development organization motivated by Judaism’s imperative to pursue justice and is dedicated to alleviating poverty, hunger, and disease among the people of the developing world,” said Ethan Prosnit, Program Director at Hillel. AJWS is committed to using grassroots organizations, volunteer service, advocacy, and education to foster civil society and sustainable development for all cultures, regardless of race, religion, or nationality. The organization sponsors programs as close as Mexico and as far away as Sri Lanka, all the while raising awareness among and lobbying before U.S. policymakers. They seek to

in the basin in which the Maya Achi lived.

More than 400 indigenous Achi Mayans were killed in the pogrom, and many more remain unaccounted for. Today, the group struggles to regain its previous way of life in the wake of a manmade tragedy.

FNE’s primary education project is a school in Correlabaj in Chiticoy. The road that leads from the local Achi Mayan community to the school floods each year from May until November, making student travel and transportation to and from school nearly impossible. FNE is currently addressing the issue, building three bridges that allow safe transport in both directions, regardless of the weather. Tufts volunteers will work with local specialists to build an additional bridge, increasing access and availability to the remote Achi Mayan villages, which are separated from Correlabaj by five rivers that

life within them as well. Having the chance to interact with the local populations is the best way to really understand the problems, and hopefully the volunteers will take time to get to know their host communities, be they in New Orleans or Correlabaj, and perhaps even discuss possible solutions to the various crises the residents of these regions face. A good old-fashioned conversation might not solve the problems, but when great minds think together, they can often find a viable way to improve the situation in the long run.

Having just sat through a weekend of EPIIC presentations on global poverty, the temptations to discuss these problems from an ivory tower is strong indeed. With these and many other Tufts student spending their vacation in such meaningful pursuits, however, it is reassuring that some of those conversations translated into action. O

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March 7, 2008

THE OBSERVER

11

The International Community Editor’s Note: This week marks the beginning of a new Observer series on various aspects of the Tufts community.

Each segment of “Inside Tufts” will give readers a glimpse of often overlooked aspects of the Tufts community. Be sure to look for more segments in the future.

BY JONATHAN

DINERSTEIN

W

alking around campus today there is a seven percent chance that the undergraduate student you pass by on the street is the citizen of another country. Tufts has 369 international undergraduate students attending the university. Combined with the number of international graduate students, faculty, and research scholars, members of the international community number over nine hundred. For a community of almost 10,000 undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty, an international population that comprises roughly nine percent of the total is astounding.

And the number is going up.

The admissions department has seen an eight percent increase in the number of international applications it receives from last year to this year. Its international recruitment is increasing as it now sends five recruiters abroad as opposed to two. In 2007, for the first time in Tufts’ history, an international recruiter visited Vietnam. This year admissions officers spent two weeks abroad in Europe, Central America, Turkey and Egypt, and Southeast Asia. Admissions has seen a specific increase in the number of applications from China and India, and Director of International Admissions Jennifer Simons, who personally spent three weeks traveling through China, India, Hong Kong, 12

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March 7, 2008

Singapore, and Korea, says that increased trips by admissions officers to those countries has contributed to the rise. The change in the makeup of international students is noteworthy as well: of the top five countries that send students to Tufts, none of them are European Union countries.

Simons says that from what she’s seen in applications, international students are attracted to Tufts’ global community. The strong International Relations and Economics departments are popular for international students, as is the emphasis on foreign languages. Tufts’ liberal arts curriculum and distribution requirements differ greatly from the stricter, more proscribed courses of study that British and Asian universities

feature. International students looking for a classic liberal arts education often set their sights on Tufts. The university’s proximity to Boston adds to the appeal of international students looking for the American college experience. Logan International airport contributes to the appeal, since international students find it easier to travel back to their native countries for breaks. Tufts attracts international students, especially those from large urban centers, who want to have a major American city nearby while also avoiding the negative aspects of city living and want

a cohesive campus life.

A major resource for international students at Tufts is the International Center. It provides a wealth of information and support for undergraduates, graduates, and even potential students. A major issue for many international students is that their home countries do not have the same standardized tests that American schools look at when choosing new undergraduates. The International Center and International Admissions help provide information about these tests for potential applicants. Students who do not speak English as a first language can also consult the International Center for information on English fluency requirements.

Once a student is accepted at Tufts, the questions of payment and immigration become important. The United States higher education system differs from many other nations’ because of the number of private institutions. In other countries where publicly-funded universities are common, determining what financial resources are necessary to attend can be troublesome. The International Center provides information on the various costs of attending Tufts to help families of international students prepare for the financial burden of sending their children to a private American university. There is also a wealth of information on visa requirements, immigration restrictions, and the documents necessary to be a foreign student studying in the United States. The International Center also provides information for international students who wish to obtain a job and must go through the proper legal channels so as not to violate their visa.

Once an international student has been accepted to Tufts, worked out finances, and arranged the proper paperwork to study in

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the United States, there is an entirely new issue: cultural adjustment. International students often have to deal with vastly different cultural values in the United States.

Being a long distance from home in a new place without knowing anyone can be very intimidating, especially if one has to overcome a language and cultural barrier. The International Center offers the story of 2003 graduate Sara Mohammadi, an economics student from Iran who had lived in Russia and the United Arab Emirates.

Eager to leave her home and experience American culture firsthand, Sara had not expected to feel so isolated and different.

Her cultural references were lost on the students in her dorm and she had trouble relating to other freshmen. She continued to withdraw into herself and resent Tufts until one night, by helping some hallmates with their Halloween costume, she began to forge connections with her peers. She began interacting with other students and started to use her differences as advantages and topics of conversation. After immigration issues hindered her return to the United States after a break, she got help from the International Center in order to speed up the process and return to study at Tufts.

The International Center provides a great deal of resources relating to culture shock and encourages international students to get involved in the community and become Resident Advisors to become more engaged and not self-isolate. International Orientation, the International Club, and the International House all provide outlets for international students to interact with each other and the community. The International

House puts international and American students under the same roof to help promote a sharing of cultures. It also hosts a wide range of events to foster intercultural exchange for the entire Tufts Community.

When international students were asked

by Admissions why they were attracted to Tufts, many of them stated that it was the large, diverse, and engaged international community at the school. They noted that Tufts has a large international population, but also that the population isn’t focused around a small number of nationalities. In 2007, the undergraduate population features seventy different nationalities, representing every continent except Antarctica. Including graduate students and faculty, the international community includes citizens of ninety-three countries.

But international applicants are also attracted to how engaged and influential the Tufts international community is. The International Club works to promote intercultural exchange in the Tufts community. Events such as the I-Cruise, Intercultural Week, and the Parade of Nations are important social events that strive to foster intercultural understanding. The I-Cruise takes place in early November as the International Club rents out the Spirit of Boston and throws a big party to help raise awareness about and interaction with the international community. Intercultural week provides an opportunity for various nationalities to showcase their own culture through screening of international films and an International Food Fair. The week finishes with the Parade of Nations, which lets different groups give musical, dance, and theater performances to demonstrate their home nations’ cultures. The club also makes an effort to reach beyond Tufts and reach the larger community. The club sends international students to speak at elementary schools about the unique cultural aspects of their native countries.

The International Community at Tufts continues to grow as foreign applicants see strong, international-oriented academics combined with a large, diverse, and engaged international community. Once they arrive they find a strong support network of clubs, centers, and other international students sharing their experience. As Admissions continues its strong recruitment of international students, Tufts may see its international community swell to even greater numbers. O Photos by Erin Baldassari March 7, 2008

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13

EDITORIAL

Professors, Give us Just One More Lesson

Last week Tufts announced that Meredith Vieira (J’75), co-host of NBC’s morning news program The Today Show, would give the 2008 Commencement address. The choice of Ms. Vieira continues an unwanted trend where commencement speakers are tapped more for their name value rather than their connection to the graduating class. An Observer editorial from April 2005 summarizes the current stance of the magazine regarding the selection of commencement speakers.

April 15, 2005

academic experience at Tufts. They are responsible for the growth, development, and maturity of students. Therefore, they, as the individuals with the most intimate and intense relationships with students, should have the honor of speaking to students, family, and friends at commencement.

President Lawrence Bacow’s choice for this year’s Commencement speech was wise, if he wanted to select a global leader. Karamanlis is, according to Bacow, a “dynamic leader, and a rising star on the global political stage.” However, he has no

ecently, the Tufts administration announced Kostas Karamanlis, prime minister of Greece, as the keynote speaker for the May 22, 2005 Commencement ceremonies.

Karamanlis is a Tufts alum and the youngest prime minister to serve Greece in its modern history. Despite his distinguished political career, he has one flaw: he has never taught at Tufts.

Commencement is a ceremony dedicated to honoring students for their accomplishments; the broad assortment of interests and achievements among the graduating students — both undergraduate and graduate — is as diverse as their backgrounds.

Karamanlis represents the passions of a certain segment within the student body of Tufts. Among the graduates, there is one common element: they are all students of Tufts. The commencement speaker should reflect that shared interest, and the only way to achieve such a goal is for a Tufts professor or administrator to address the community.

Tufts prides itself on its successful and influential faculty, both in the local and global communities. Faculty have been recognized by their colleagues for their achievements in scholarship, research, and in the progress of their field of study. Professors are the most consistent element throughout a student’s

current involvement with the university on a regular basis. Karamanlis is unaware about the real issues that Tufts’ students face during their time here. Does he know what it was like to enter Tufts as a freshman in 2001? Just a few weeks into the academic year, the impact of the violent events of Sept. 11 engulfed our minds. Can Karamanlis speak to the fact that this graduating class of undergraduate seniors began with Bacow, and will now be the president’s first full-cycle of students?

Can Karamanlis address the on-going and important struggles between the Left and Right on campus? Can he note that students and administration have made continued and earnest attempts at solving controversial

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campus issues such as the Naked Quad Run and academic freedom? And, perhaps most importantly, can Karamanlis feel, with any passion or experience, what this current collection of faculty and administrators mean to the graduating students? The answer to all of the above is, he cannot. Karamanlis, regardless of his achievements, cannot fulfill the responsibilities of an essential element to the Commencement address: speaking to the students about their experience at Tufts.

T hose who disag ree argue that individuals like Karamanlis or last year’s speaker, Walter Isaacson, provide a broader perspective than can be offered by a faculty member or another Tufts community member. Yet, the reason students and faculty choose to become a part of this institution is because they are proud of what occurs on this campus. Why not highlight the best Tufts has to offer by selecting a faculty member to deliver the speech?

In an institution that values the importance of professors’ roles, why not use this opportunity to allow a faculty member the chance to provide one more lesson, one more kernel of experience from their own lives, one more class? Currently, a few SARAH LEENEN administrators decide who will address the community at graduation.

However, the attendees who matter most, the students, want a change. The difficulty is, some students have spent their years at Tufts battling with administrators about making changes. At the end of that time, just before graduation, most do not want to pick another fight.

The Observer seeks immediate and drastic changes to the Commencement ceremony with regards to the selection process of the speaker. The ideal speaker should not be the most well-known Tufts alumnus, it should be the faculty member who has touched the lives of the greatest number of students. O

RYAN STOLP

BY

T

LAUREN “LAZER” MAZEL

here’s something romantic about movie theaters, especially the older, smaller venues like Davis Square’s own Somerville Theater. A character and history belongs to the seats, where thousands have sat before, awed by the wonders of cinema (granted, I try not to think about what else has gone on in or been spilled on my seat). I love the architecture of the main theater in Davis, unlike the carpeted walls of and AMC or Loews. The escapism of movies draws me in. At least I tell myself all these things to justify paying eight dollars for two hours of entertainment that I’ll soon be able to buy and take home from the video store for fifteen Of course, theaters have other practical advantages over watching movies on my dinky, 13 inch MacBook screen and Tufts bookstore speakers. Namely, the big screen (Somerville Theater’s main screen is over 400 times the size of my computer’s) and the surround sound technology. It’s high quality resolution and I don’t have to cram five or six people on my dorm bed.

Even with these conveniences, going to the movies is expensive, so I expect my experience to be good. Most times, the theater upholds its end of the bargain – I have a clean seat, leg room, arm rests (with a cup-holder for the soda I trick-turned from Hodgdon and snuck in to avoid doubling my expenditures on a small concession stand fountain drink), and a two hour movie with good sound and resolution. However, more often than not, my movie-going excursion is ruined by fellow movie-goers.

There are many things viewers can do during a movie to disturb other paying customers. There’s always the annoying laugher, who laughs a little too loud and a little too long at every joke. There’s the person coughing up a lung in the cinema when he should be in quarantine to avoid passing the plague to the whole audience. There’s the tall hat or high hair who always manages not to be in all the empty seats but the one right in front of me. However, the worst kind of movie ruiner is the one who laughs… at serious movies.

“Seinfeld” touched upon this faux-pas when Jerry got caught making out during Schindler’s List. This atrocity is no freak occurrence; it happens every day. My most

OPINIONS

I Should Have Waited For the DVD

recent recen experience was during There Will Be Bl Blood (spoiler warning: if you haven’t seen this movie, stop reading and go see it rright now). This film, in true Upton Sinclair Sin fashion, illustrates the greed and ungodliness un of capitalism during the Industrial dust Revolution. Essentially, oil is God g and greed is worship—themes that should hardly be taken lightly. And yet, most of the audience audien was laughing during a scene depicting pictin the absolute corruption of the human soul for money. Paul (played by Paul Dano), is a religious prophet and founder of the Church of the Third Revelation who, despite his morals as a holy man, yells “I am a false prophet and God is a superstition.”

Paul’s reasons for doing this? To convince Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) into buying some land in order to get Paul out of financial trouble. He betrays his God, beliefs, and entire life’s work in hopes of money. I guess I didn’t get the memo that the murder of religion for cash suddenly had comedic value.

I do realize that there are explanations for this kind of reaction. Daniel Day-Lewis, as much as he deserved the Oscar, does overact a bit at some points in the film. Also, there is a very atypical dynamic between DayLewis and Dano’s characters that may make viewers uncomfortable, which could manifest itself in nervous laughter. Even so, it seems like we too often try to laugh off tense situations when we should be embracing them.

Awkward and uncomfortable moments are just as much a part of the human experience as funny, lighthearted ones.

Regardless, I don’t think these situational excuses can make up for the thematic inappropriateness of laughing during most of the movie. Even as an atheist, I understood the seriousness of denouncing God for any earthly possession. Characters looking or acting funny doesn’t mean that the scene is funny.

After seeing There Will Be Blood three times in theaters (I know, a little extreme) and enduring untimely laughter throughout, I’m still waiting for the DVD to get the experience I want. Despite the lack of a big screen and THX Surround Sound, it will be better without an audience who cackles to alleviate their own anxiety. As much as I love going to the movies and shy from misanthropy, there are times when peoples’ stupidity means it’s better to just wait for the DVD. O Lauren Mazel is a freshman who has not yet declared a major.

March 7, 2008

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amsdell’s | amblings

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ith the rise of the digital media, hopes are that we may have found a way to stop the forests from continuing to fall (by our own hands of course). Perhaps many readers have heard of Project Gutenberg, though it has not been my experience that many are familiar with its cache of treasures. Now, if you are one of those people who puts “I don’t read books” in your Facebook book section, then not only should you stop reading now (unless you endeavor to rectify your deficiency) but may the paradoxical nature of the fact that you are, at this very moment, ready cause the fabric of reality to swallow you whole...Good, you’re still here. Anyhow, Project Gutenberg is a website, begun by Michael Hart, that endeavors to digitalize as many books as it can, both to preserve them for posterity and to help in the proliferation of literature.

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The Gutenberg Gig There is, of course, the additional benifit of consuming less wood pulp otherwise used in books.

Often times, the available books are restricted to those in the public domain, which (delightfully) includes titles like Dracula, Alice in Wonderland, Sherlock Holmes, and the prolific works of authors like H.G. Wells and Shakespeare, who wrote before binding copyright laws were in place. But don’t be fooled by this restriction, they have over 20,000 titles on their site and over 100,000 on that of their affiliates. While Gutenberg supports several different text formats, some of their numerous affiliates harbor an even better kept secret: Audiobooks.

Websites like Librivox.org work similarly to Gutenberg in that they use open source material, but they have volunteer-recorded downloads of books for free. If you have found a site charging you, go elsewhere.

The only thing to watch out for is the occasional overzealous reader who thinks him or herself classy enough to employ a faux English accent worthy of someone named Edward Clarence Percival Cumberchaps or else has a very noticeable cat in the room during a bit of the recording. Classy though he be, Old Cumberchaps can serenade you for only long as each chapter of any given book is generally done by a different person. In any event, having several hundred titles on your computer for less than a gigabite of space and no out of pocket expence can only serve to aid you in your own intellectual acrobatics, and with new, easy on the eyes digital document readers like the Kindle, it’s only going to get better. O Ramsdell’s Ramblings is a when possible column devoted to intellectual acrobatics.

Top: Cascades Ouzoud, Central Morocco. Mike Snyder. See page 23 for more on Moroccan conservation.

Bottom: Hip-hop, R&B, and everything in between, Funksoullove performed in Hotung on leap Friday. Kelsey Bell

All: JHOOM! The Tufts Association of South Asians’ annual culture and dance performance. Erin Baldassari

The pastel drawings above are by Rachel Tan. For more art see Poetry and Prose p.33.

So… Who’s Right on Health Care Anyway?

BY

F

MICHAEL STEINBERG

or those who have even remotely been following this year’s presidential election, health care seems to be one of those issues that remains a contentious one, sparking on the one hand vicious sparring between Democratic rivals Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), and on the other, ominous prophecies of the threat of socialized medicine from the Republican frontrunner, Senator John McCain (R-AZ).

In a recent Ohio debate between the Democratic rivals, Senators Clinton and Obama spent a large fraction of the approximately 90 minutes engaged in a heated back-and-forth, with Clinton suggesting that Obama’s plan “leaves out 15 million Americans,” and Obama, meanwhile, attempting to underscore that the differences between the two Democrats’ plans pale in comparison to the differences they both share with Senator McCain. According to Obama, experts who have evaluated the two Democrats’ health care plans have concluded that

the plans are “95% identical.”

In part, the arguments about health care can certainly be attributed to the fact that the topic is very mystifying. The question of how America can most effectively cover the approximately 47 million of its citizens who currently lack health insurance involves a plunge into such diverse realms as philosophy, public health, economics, and a host of others. There is no question that health care is on the minds of virtually all voters, regardless of political stripe — as costs continue to skyrocket while wages have remained stagnant over the last several years, the price tag of health insurance is placing a strain on the pocketbooks of millions more Americans beyond the already-uninsured 47 million. If one were to listen to the GOP and Democratic positions, however, one might be confused about what exactly the best solutions are, and perhaps might even wonder if the two parties aren’t living in separate dimensions of the cosmos. John McCain sings the praises of the free market, submitting that stimulation of competition and emphasis on a “consumer-based” system is

the only way to help lower costs and insure more Americans. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, emphatically counters that the issuance of a mandate that all Americans have health insurance is the only way to finally get to universal care. Obama’s plan emphasizes lowering costs and premiums and providing subsidies to low-income Americans and families, in addition to placing a mandate on families to insure their children.

Before I weigh in on the storied schism between Clinton and Obama, I will first summarily dismiss the laissez-faire emphasis of McCain. McCain’s belief that the free market will somehow lower the cost of health care and inherently provide the best quality care is simply out of touch with reality, and is sorely out of sync with the views of the majority of Americans, as well as most leaders in health care and health policy. The unregulated free market has clearly failed to adequately satisfy the nation’s demand for health care (which, I will humbly submit, is a demand shared by every single person that lives in this country). How else could it be that, despite spending over $2 trillion a year on health care (a figure constituting 18% of the U.S. GDP) and twice as much as any other nation, the U.S. ranks only 45 in the world in life expectancy? How else could it be that a recent study on the performance of national health systems by the World Health Organization ranked the United States 37?

The present system, in which health care providers emphasize profits over treatment, will never see a lowering of costs or an improvement in care. Indeed, from John McCain (at least on health care), we can expect no forward progress on this vital issue to the welfare of the American populace — just more of the same.

Indeed, popular opinion and expert opinion both indicate that the two remaining March 7, 2008

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Democratic candidates’ plans, which engender an approach in which the burden of health care is shared between private insurers, employers, and the public market, both offer a chance for America to finally begin to take steps toward a more efficient and high-quality health care system that provides universal coverage. Before I proceed any further, let me quickly recap Hillary’s and Barack’s respective plans, which, as Barack is eager to mention as frequently as possible, are truly quite similar in their general approach. Both candidates would require large employers to provide health insurance for employees or contribute to the cost of insurance; both would provide tax credits to small businesses and subsidies for low-income individuals; both would create a pool of private plans similar to the program for federal workers and one public plan similar to Medicare; both would expand Medicaid and SCHIP (State Children’s Health Insurance Program).

What, then, is the big fault line between Clinton and Obama on health care?

Clinton’s plan includes a mandate, meaning that all Americans would be legally required to procure health insurance, while Obama believes that such a mandate would not be enforceable and sees the crux of the issue as lying with cost.

O b a m a ’s logic is simple enough: if you make health care affordable, then most individuals will buy it.

The debate is certainly valid, but by and large, both candidates are right on health care.

According to the latest survey of health care experts and leaders produced by The Comm o n we a l t h 22

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March 7, 2008

Fund (13 Commonwealth Fund/Modern Healthcare Health Care Opinion Leaders Survey), 61% of health care opinion leaders believe that the mixed private-public group insurance system reform proposals of the Democratic candidates provide an effective approach to achieving universal health care coverage, with half of business, insurance, and other health care industry leaders expressing such support. Meanwhile, the GOP proposals, relying on tax incentives for the individual market, are seen by these same experts (including business and health care leaders) as ineffective, with a resounding 59% of respondents to the survey saying that such proposals were inadequate.

The survey is exhaustive in its findings; however, one finding in particular may help to shed light on the question of a mandate: an overwhelming percentage (83%) of respondents to the survey favored a health insurance mandate.

At first, it may seem like such a finding would surely render Obama’s plan inferior to Clinton’s. In reality, however, the more important question for the voters to be asking themselves is which plan will lower costs enough to put quality health care in the reach of every American? Since Obama’s

plan allows children to remain on their parents’ coverage up to the age of 25, Clinton’s criticism that Obama’s plan would result in a “hidden tax” as irresponsible youngsters game the system by not buying insurance and simply go to the emergency room when they get sick is not all that worrisome.

So, let us finally clear the air about this health care quagmire: there is no need to fear the mandate bogeyman, as leaders in both the public and private sectors have clearly begun to see the validity of such a requirement. And there’s no reason whatsoever to worry that Obama’s plan somehow stops short of universal coverage, since his plan implements a virtually identical set of measures to Clinton’s to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and provide a role for the government to work in partnership with employers and private insurers. Democrats can feel confident that, regardless of who their nominee will be, they will be prepared to expose the Republicans’ health care proposals for what they really are — no proposal at all. O Mike Steinberg is a freshman who has not yet declared a major.

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MIKE SNYDER

hen it comes to harming the environment, I’ve never understood why developing countries, the socalled Third World nations, get constantly chastised by developed industrial economies like the United States. It seems strange that Americans who actually care about sustainable development, protecting the environment, and resource management seem ultra-aware of environmental abuses perpetrated by giants like China and India, but they never seem to talk about all the good things people in the Third World are doing to keep the environment on track.

The peculiar truth is that many Third World citizens, if not their governments, have a lot to offer us in terms of advice for helping to reduce our environmental impact, and in turn, letting humanity bask in prosperity a little longer. The West may have green buildings, wind power, and CFLs, but Third World countries have several triedand-true techniques that have evolved over thousands of years of having to adapt to the regional environment, few of which require photovoltaic cells or other cutting edge technology. I witnessed a number of these strategies during my semester abroad in Morocco, both in urban and rural settings. The following is an abbreviated list of some the smart, creative, and bold lifestyle changes you can make if you really want to shake up the way you treat the environment — and yourself along with it.

they tend to have similar tastes in architectural style. Because the color white reflects sunlight better than darker colors, it acts as a wonderful insulator to keep your home cool in the summer months. This saves air-conditioning costs and fanusage. Virtually every home in the Old City of Morocco’s capital is a bright offwhite color; some even have gardens on their roofs, adding a literal meaning to the term “green building.”

2. Maximize vehicle space. If you’re too lazy to carpool, you’ll hate North Africa, where the taxi drivers stuff seven people in mid-sized sedans so they never have to double back. And unlike in the States, Moroccans actually make full use of their mini-vans and SUVs by throwing ten or more people in the backseats. It’s like public transportation on a miniature scale: people commute to work by hopping atop pickup-trucks with 15 other people already aboard, or just by hitch-hiking. So don’t complain next time you’re in the “middle seat” of a car on your way to Prudential.

goes to feed cattle — not ourselves — who also eat up pastures and release lots of toxic gasses, like methane, into the atmosphere. It is even argued that the beef industry contributes to greenhouse gasses on par with petroleum burning. Moroccans could definitely take a hint from the Vegetarian Society, but at least they tend to eat lamb instead of beef, as well as buy their meat from local butcheries instead of relying on carbon-fueled transportation (and refrigeration-cooled meat) from thousands of miles away.

4. Bring your own bag. No less than ten or 20 years ago, when Moroccans wanted to eat dinner, they would head to the neighborhood marketplace and buy fresh locallygrown produce directly from farmers or middle men. But in this globalized era of processed foods, McDonalds, and supermarkets, meals are less environmentally friendly and plastic bags pollute the countryside en masse. Still, many families rely on local organic foods, and though it takes more time to prepare, it tastes a hell of a lot better and requires a lot fewer energy-consuming industrial processes. Dorm lifestyle isn’t ex-

3. Eat lower on the food chain. I love meat, but animal cruelty aside, cutting back on the stuff is one of the most significant ways to reduce your environmental impact, according to consumerconsequences. org. A huge portion 1. Live in a white house. Most Moroc- of the grain produced cans don’t like George Bush very much, but in Midwestern farms

MIKE SNYDER March 7, 2008

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actly conducive to home cooking, but try to eat at Dewick over Jumbo Express, and forgo the plastic bag at Hodgdon.

5. Be a Berber. Average Americans are privileged enough to be insulated from the wear and tear of environmental damage and degradation; we don’t worry about where our garbage goes because it goes someplace far away. But take a rural Berber community in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains: the villagers there must coexist beside their environment everyday, and thus become acutely aware of when they chop down too many trees for fuel, overgraze the pasture with flocks of sheep, and damage the soil through excessive farming. Plus, there’s no place for the garbage to go (except in the river) when you’re 100 miles away from the nearest city.

Instead of living in a bubble, realize that just because you can’t see the effects of your consumption firsthand doesn’t mean there are none.

6. Be a patriot. Don’t try to tell those Berber villagers that climate change isn’t real, or they’ll think you’ve been smoking way too much hash. In part due to increasing global temperatures, Morocco has been experiencing a drought for over three decades. This drought has led to decreased mountain snowfall and therefore fewer water sources (i.e. snowmelt lakes and streams). Hundreds of thousands of rural villagers, who lack irrigation water to grow sufficient crops, have been forced to migrate to big cities like Casablanca, where they sometimes end up in awful slums and, in their desperation, get recruited by terrorist organizations.

Talk about national security.

7. Buy less crap. I’m sure the economists among us are shaking their fists at the suggestion, but seriously, buy less stuff.

Americans consume upwards of 25% of the world’s resources and 26% of the world’s 24

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March 7, 2008

energy; everything you purchase takes resources and energy to make, and generates waste. Take a hint from my Moroccan host family, who rarely bought new goods — they usually opted to use older items or fix what they already had. They also kept their trash light, used cloth instead of paper towels or napkins, and slept on couches or floor mats instead of Western beds.

8. Go wild, but not too much. For the really brave among us, act like the vast majority of people in the world, and don’t use any toilet paper. TP is a luxury for most Asians, Africans, and Latin Americans (that is, if they even understand how to use it properly). Even Europeans grab half as many sheets as Americans. Somebody passed along to me the interesting but questionable tidbit that if everybody in the world used as much toilet paper as Americans, all of the world’s forests would be cut down in a mat-

ter of weeks. Okay, hygiene is important and maybe we shouldn’t dispel with the toilet paper entirely, but few public health officials would complain if Americans took quicker showers and rewore yesterday’s clothes.

The sad reality that few Americans are willing to recognize is that to change our relationship with the environment, it’s necessary to change some of the very tenets of American lifestyle and culture. The only way for America to halt its unsustainable path of resource consumption and waste creation — barring

environmental catastrophe, government policy-overhaul, or the rise of a dictator — is if Americans start to devalue material goods, respect the natural world, and abide by the motto that “less is more.”

America can learn a thing or two from its neighbors in this regard. The problem is when the opposite occurs: when countries like China and India start to adopt Western attitudes towards natural resources and the environment. Then the result is obscene amounts of polluted rivers, high carbon dioxide emissions, destroyed ecosystems, toxic air pollution, etc. The irony here is that countries like Morocco, despite their environmental friendliness, lack environmental conscientiousness; the populace has no concept of an “environmental movement.”

Their sustainable practices have occurred organically over the centuries through trial and error. If outside influences persuade them to change their lifestyle, however, Moroccans will screw up as badly as Americans have — which is the danger when the West opens up its technologies, goods, and services to the markets of non-industrialized countries that don’t know the meaning of the word “carbon footprint.”

It’s already happening. A quick stroll through the Old Medina marketplace reveals unprecedented numbers of plastics, textiles, telecommunications technology, computers, and other MIKE SNYDER goods that the locals soak up with lots of purchasing power and not a clue as to the environmental impact of such products. And as the happy people gorge, the country gradually becomes a cesspool of grocery bags, old plastic parts, driedup rivers, and felled forests. Soon it will be hard to tell where the Sahara ends and where Morocco begins. O Mike Snyder is a junior majoring in American Studies.

Bite-size news new you might have m missed since our las last issue.

Witty Alum Tells All Tufts alum Adam Felber (’89) spoke with his alma matter about his role on the NPR MICHAEL SCHECHT q u i z s h o w Wait Wait…

Don’t Tell Me!, as the show celebrated its 10-year anniversary. The news-oriented show is aired during the weekends and is hosted by Peter Sagal. The official judge, scorekeeper, and “resident impressionist” is Carl Kasell.

In addition to these weekly appearances the show also features three panelists from the group of 10, and several callers. Felber is a panelist on the show and says his job “is to be insightful and entertaining.” Other panelists include sports writer Charlie Pierce and stand-up comic Paula Poundstone.

Tufts Goes Green, Round Three The Third Annual Tufts Energy Conference will be held on Saturday, March 29.

Confirmed speakers include Nick D’Arbeloff, co-executive director of the New England Clean Energy Council, Greg Watson, vice president for sustainable development and renewable energy at the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, and Bill Davis, founder and CEO of Ze-Gen, a waste-toenergy company. The event is co-sponsored

by Young Entrepreneurs at Tufts and the Fletcher Energy Consortium.

Gore Befriends Tufts Gilbert E. Metcalf, a professor of economics, was invited by Al Gore to make a presentation on carbon taxes as part of a panel on carbon pricing at a workshop on climate change. Gore chaired and hosted the private meeting in New York City in January, which included financier and philanthropist George Soros and members of the GreenTech Team from Kleiner Perkins Caufield &

Byers, a venture capital firm.

Alum Dispels Myth Jeffrey Blumberg, professor of nutrition and director of the Antioxidants Research Laboratory, was quoted in a Reader’s Digest article on “The Vitamin Myth.” “There have been many studies looking at supplements,” he said, “but the most consistent evidence we’ve had over the past 30 years is that eating a healthy diet, low in salt and saturated fat, losing extra weight, exercising moderately, reducing stress and quitting smoking are our best guarantees against disease and premature death.”

Museum Muscle Andrew McClellan, dean of academic affairs and professor of art history, recently published his book The Art Museum from Boullée to Bilbao, which is a commentary on how art museums have become the most vibrant cultural institutions in the West. The book comments on how museums have come to play that role and how they have changed over the last 200 years.

Puzzled Proposal

unusual request. He wanted a custom puzzle to help him pop the question. Married Tufts alumni Emily Cox (’73) and Henry Rathvon (’74), who have penned the puzzle for years, were happy to help. The custom crossword was entitled “Popping the Question” and each entry was a variation on the theme. It was laced with personal references to the couple, but still made sense to the general public. Clues such as “Generic proposal” played lightly on the names of the couple (Jen + Aric) for full effect. When the couple got to this question, Egmont got down on one knee and presented the ring. Bass will graduate next May and the couple plans to marry this September.

—Compiled by Molly Posner

TCU Senate Update On February 24, the TCU Senate: •Met with Senate culture representatives to discuss the concerns of various communities on campus. The meeting was spearheaded by the Senate’s Community Values Committee and sought to confer how each culture community felt impacted by freedom of expression.

•Decided to form a judicial review board next year, consisting of the Judicial Affairs Officer, the Chair of the Judiciary, and a representative from the Academic Resource Center. Veronica Carter and Dean Reitman came to the agreement, and set the Board with the task of reviewing the grounds for appeals in cases relating to academic integrity.

Searching for the perfect way to propose to his Friedman School graduate student girlfriend, Jennie Bass, Aric Egmont turned to their favorite pastime – the Boston Globe Sunday crossword puzzle. Last summer, Egmont approached the Boston Globe with an

•Decided to run the Boston Bus Shuttle once again. The shuttle started on February 29 and will continue to run Friday and Saturday nights. The shuttle will run between Tufts, the Boylston T Stop, and the Kenmore T Stop from 10 p.m to 3 a.m. every weekend for the rest of the semester, except for during spring break. The Shuttle is free with your Tufts ID. March 7, 2008

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ARTS AND EXCURSIONS

The Top 10 Television

What makes you turn on, tune in, cringe and wince in sadomasochistic pleasure? The Observer asked you, the readers, what your favorite television guilty pleasures were. There were many suggestions, and the following ten have been selected as the best.

BY

MICHAEL TUCKER

#10 Maury Suggesed by Ben Chase Who doesn’t like watching people solve extremely personal disputes in front of millions of people? Watching Maury Povich’s show, we are humbly reminded that 15-year-olds can have as much sex as they want, with whomever they want, because it’s their body and they do what they want. You disagree?

That’s because you wished you looked that good. Now sit down and shut up, sit down and shut up. # 9 Saved by the Bell Suggesed by Ben Broderick For many Tufts students, high school is nothing more than a quickly fading, fond memory. This gritty, realistic drama reminds us all what it was like. The show never shies away from the controversial topics facing most American teenagers — like what to do when finding oil under the football field, or how to set up an underground babysitting syndicate. Most importantly, Saved by the Bell captured the beauty of early 1990s America (or present day Canada). # 8 Next Suggesed by Jon Bloom This is how dating would be if the Nazis had won the war — a bizarre spectacle of utilitarian courtship that makes everyone involved uncomfortable. The MTV show features one contestant, either a man or woman, and five suitors vying for his or her affection. It is, for all comparative purposes, the television equivalent to a frat party hook-up. They both have attractive people, sexual tension, and cheesy dialogue — and we can’t look away.

We know how it’s going to end, but we watch anyways.

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#7 Mythbusters Suggesed by Matt Schultze The pseudo-science of Mythbusters appeals to everyone, from engineers to art history majors. The show answers questions that most of us never asked, but it is good to know the answers anyway. Next time you win an argument over whether or not a frozen duck can stop a bullet, you will have Mythbusters to thank. The only question left unresolved is what Adam and Jamie, the show’s two hosts, do after the cameras are off. Moustache rides, anyone?

# 5 History Channel Suggesed by Stephanie Brown Some consider this channel an educational tool. Others see it in its more natural light, as a guilt-free way to procrastinate. Reading is clumsy and intrusive, requiring your undivided attention and both of your hands.

Watching this History Channel is like a book that holds and reads itself, and the pictures move too! If nothing else, the History Channel offers the viewer a chance to pick up a few morsels of knowledge, morsels that can and hopefully will be used to silence that knowit-all in your political science lecture. Turn it on, you might learn something. # 6 To Catch A Predator Suggesed by Thomas Sutherland Is there a better better way to start socially rehabilitating a criminal than by confronting him on national television? I didn’t think so.

This show features the always-smug and self serving Chris Hansen, courageously cleaning up America’s streets, one pedophile at a time. It is also the only show on television

that elicits the screams once reserved solely for slasher flicks. “Don’t go into that room, there’s a man with a chainsaw… I mean, there’s Chris Hansen!” Watching this show could contribute to the downfall of television, then all entertainment, then civilized society. But who cares? When it’s on, “why don’t you just go ahead and have a seat.” #4 Games and Sports Network Suggesed by Sam Dozor This channel features the long-lost children’s game shows, such as Global Guts, Legends of the Hidden Temple, and Double Dare. It reminds us of a simpler time, a time before the war on terror, a time when alliances were drawn not by nations but by Silver Snakes and Blue Barracudas. It also reminds us that the warning signs were always there — Tufts students complain about a tyrannical and warmongering President Bush, but they all turned a blind eye throughout childhood to the iron-fisted rule of Olmec. When you were a kid, you were pretty sure that you could beat up on those Global Guts’ punks and earn yourself a piece of the crag. Now, as a college student, you are supremely confident that you would reign supreme over those 12-year-olds.

# 3 Food Network Suggesed by Steve Sherman An entire channel dedicated solely to food — a college student’s dream. You’ve worked your way well into the night, and through a bottle of hooch and a bag of reefer, but the party has died down. What to do? Your roommates are still awake, so porn is out of the question. You could read, but the room is spinning too quickly for you to focus on the words. The Food Network, of course!

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Guilty Pleasures Salivating, in an ecstasy of imagined flavor, you watch as chef after chef prepares tasty treats. Then it hits you: your grandmother is probably watching the same show. Then the guilt sets in. Then you order Domino’s. # 2 Lifetime Channel Movies Suggesed by Katia Porzocanksi Women: are you tired of being subjugated as inferior by a world of male oppressors?

Do you wish there were movies about how you feel? Well there are, and one is probably on right now. Men: don’t feel left out. Every once in a while, even the most masculine of men needs to express his femininity — and Lifetime Channel movies are a lot easier than traipsing around in heels and a skirt for

a night. These made-for-TV gems feature routinely poor acting, but are driven by their engaging and unique plots. With a Lifetime movie, you never know what you are going to get. Is it going to be teacher-overcomesoppressive-male-principal? Could it be wifeovercomes-oppressive-husband? Maybe something simpler, like unknowingly-butultimately-empowered-rookie-female-copovercomes-oppressive-precinct-Sergeantthen-finds-strength-in-inner-femininity?

Who knows, but I’ll for sure be watching. #1 A Shot At Love With Tila Tequila Suggesed by Mike Tucker The myspace-starlet turned mainstream eyecandy starred in her own show to find out

if she was more attracted to men or women.

Tila Tequila sifted through a horde of gulls, both men and women, to try and find true love. It is a stylish and sexy adaptation of a a mouse running through a maze to find a wedge of cheese. A riveting case-study into the bisexual psyche, this show has greatly benefited the academic community (look for a Tufts course in the fall: gender differences, class construction, and bias in A Shot At Love with Tila Tequila). The show also proved that liquor, bikinis, and an average IQ of 65 make great television. O Upset that your favorite TV show did not make the list? Go to www.tuftsobserver.org and comment. Do it; Big Brother is watching.

od ed gh but our of om on se!

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Too New?

A Review of the New Museum of Contemporary Art BY

RACHEL TAN

C

onspicuously placed between gritty buildings alongside Stanton and Rivington Street lies the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York.

Though this title might sound familiar, it is the Museum’s first year at its new location at Bowery, moved from its previous location on 11th Street near the pier. Though one would think this area unfitting for a chic, minimalist building exterior, the New Museum’s concept for design and artwork seem to fit its location very well. Away from the hustle and bustle of places such as Wall Street or the highend designer boutiques on 5th Avenue and Madison, Soho gives the New Museum a deconstructed, slightly unpolished feeling. This, of course, is not a negative statement, as the New Museum defines itself as “a home for contemporary art and an incubator for new ideas, as well as an architectural contribution to New York’s urban landscape.” It offers a whole new perspective on contemporary art, unifying the elegant with the urban.

The Museum’s elegance is hard to miss. Designed by Japanese architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, it screams “creative potential” with simplified white rectangular planes, featuring nothing but simple beautiful lighting and an off-center, rainbow colored “hell yes!” neon sign, a piece by Ugo Rondinone. It shows the space as a place of alternative artistic creation, where the simplest things could be made into imaginative pieces.

The location also presents the space as an unpretentious one; with its wide glass pane windows and swing doors, it invites passersby to casually stroll in. The New Museum has a relatively small lobby area, with a conservative, un-intimidating ticket counter and museum store. It definitely contrasts sharply with the likes of the Museum of Modern Art or even the Guggenheim. Visitors access all seven levels of the building using an elevator, or the staircases, if you are so inclined.

Unfortunately, this does prove quite an inconvenience to your viewing experience since the elevators are quite slow and do not allow you to interact with the space and

installations while walking up and down the building as you would normally do in other museums. However, the elevators are quite a unique experience, with mirrored doors and neon green wall paint.

What makes this Museum so innovative is that it truly offers a different way of seeing art. It makes the viewer address a widely discussed question: what is art? At least, that is what it did for me. The New Museum’s fifth floor especially has visitors leave with an understanding of art not only as a mode of creative expression, but also as a way to reinvent our environment today, and a way to raise awareness of socio-political issues through art installations in actual cultural settings. These ideas were brilliantly exhibited in a temporary exhibition featuring the works of five artistic organizations everywhere from the United States to Korea. The artists focused on a neighborhood in their respective countries and used a space to convey a cultural message to stir social awareness.

For example, the Insa Art Space group from

large exhibition titled “Unmonumental.”

This exhibition defines itself as an exhibition “about fragmented forms, torn pictures, clashing sounds.” If you are a painter or some other sort of classical artist, or if you prefer more mainstream modern artists who stick to conventional media, this might be a bit much to digest. The only series of artworks that I thought vaguely interesting were a series of photomontages by Martha Rosler.

Her message is clear; and she presents politically charged art that speaks to the issues of war juxtaposed against modern materialistic consumer culture. Rosler combines photographs of women and their children with destroyed spaces, or fashion show catwalks in a garden with a soldier carrying a gun in the background. Some might think the message quite predictable, but Rosler achieves a great visual effect through her sensitivity towards composition, lighting, and relationships between colors. While progressing through these four floors, I was also confronted with a percussionist-inspired soundtrack, at times featuring voiceovers. Although these are supposed to be thought-provoking, I found them distracting and it did not contribute to my further understanding of the art. Other examples of artwork are miniature sculptures built out of cereal boxes, prints simulating old woodblock cuts with modern obscene content, and wired gates formed in a circle.

Another conversation piece is a wax bust of a woman, that is constantly being melted like a candle. This creates an interesting effect with varying layers of wax of different colors through different times of solidification. I thought this was a terrific idea, but I am still wondering if I can call it art. The Museum’s ideas are fresh, provocative, and alternative, and the building itself is a state-of-the-art example of postmodern style, but a majority of the artwork still lacks a certain passion that you see in the brushstrokes of Van Gogh or Pollock, the sensitivity in a Rembrandt, or even the blatant mass-production message of Warhol. The New Museum does have its target audience and does prove to be a destination spot for any curious person in New York, but in terms of artistic validity, I still find it difficult to accept. Nevertheless, it is a beautiful space with never-before-seen installations, so in this sense, it is definitely for anyone who loves a great experience and shocking artwork. However, if you are in a rush for time, just admiring the façade can certainly suffice. O

The Museum’s elegance is hard to miss.

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Korea presented their artwork as an attempt to convert a public cemetery into a public park. The installation consisted of a sixminute, two-channel video with sound from a recording of the site itself. Their video included the viewer by using a unique conical speaker hanging from the ceiling, achieving its greatest sound when one stood underneath it. What made this work so powerful was its context. The cemetery is home to 1,000 unidentified deceased belonging to the colonial area from various minority groups, a majority of them sex workers, smugglers or drug dealers. Through this installation, the artist hopes to bring attention to the fact that the dead have just as much of a voice, if not more of one, as living people do.

Though these exhibitions were taken down on February 24, do look out for an even larger exhibition coming shortly, and talks given by historians from those countries.

The next four floors feature very radical installation work, each level classified mostly by material, together comprising part of a

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Nothing’s Different...

BY

A

BRIAN MCLOONE

rthur Nauzyciel’s production of Julius Caesar, now running at the American Repertory Theatre, is a gripping, self-conscious portrayal of a perennially germane play. It is common among reviews of political classics like 1984, Brave New World, and Julius Caesar, that an otherwise stoic critic will note that the play or book is “more relevant now than ever before.”

Such laudations have become the norm on the dust jackets of humanity’s collection of manifestos, and so I try to always shy away from such descriptions in my own reviews.

Unfortunately, it’s hard not to at least capture the tone of such a remark when talking about this contemporary interpretation of Shakespeare’s classic piece — so my apologies to the reader.

And to be fair, Nauzyciel’s directing portrays the bland, amoral bureaucracy of a corrupted government made up of lifeless monsters, so it’s hardly a stretch to make a connection to our own attempt at governance. Perhaps most evident (and most relevant) in his story is that politics has no heroes. The so-called representatives of the people are villainous or naïve, cunning or simply misguided. They are, in either case, purely in the game for their own egoism and self-aggrandizing tendencies. Nauzyciel illustrates this fact vividly and bravely in a variety of theatrical tones. The backdrop of the performance, as one example, is an image of a large, empty theater. It’s therefore unclear for whom Brutus, Cassius, Antony, and his beloved Caesar are performing. Nev-

AMERICAN REPERATORY THEATRE

ertheless, it is abundantly clear that they are performing. The whole production is an act, and it seems unclear that either side — the entrenched dictator or the ambitious senators — really cares who comes out on top.

One gets the sense, in other words, that both parties are in it purely for the entertainment value of a coup.

Such an approach is surprisingly timely now (oops, there I said it), when the differences between political parties in our own republic are so small as to be virtually inexistent. This is plainly obvious to anyone reasonable enough to look above the festivities and understand that no party has the true interests of the countrymen in mind. This is self-evidently the case in Julius Caesar, when Brutus and Cassius decide to take gruesome measures to ensure that their assassination of Caesar will appear noble to the idiot masses who crowd the streets of Rome.

To this extent, it’s incredible how the logic of Victorian England mirrors exactly the underlying assumptions of political discourse today. In Barack Obama’s book The Audacity of Hope, he admits that in college he realized the incoherence of institutions like monogamy and American imperialism. He writes that he eventually realized, however, that such institutions are entirely necessary to maintain the order of our society. This is a clear echo of a sentiment held by John Adams, who sought to ensure that the government kept the “permanent interests” of the United States firmly intact — those interests, of course, being the economic

domination of a very small segment of the population, a group who hardly has time to deal with the maniacal requests of the rest of the citizenry.

At the beginning of the production, Brutus walks out and stares at the crowd then looks at his shadow on an eerie white block in the center of the stage. Such a behavior reflects the overall tone of the play — that is, the politicians recognize their place as rulers of a crowd, a god reflected on a blank slate, waiting to write history. Unmistakably, this recognition of power does not translate directly toward a demeanor of seriousness.

At the end of the play, when everyone has been killed, the country is in turmoil, and tyranny has shown itself to be the product of a so-called democratic revolt, the cast dances to “Say it Right” by Nelly Furtado, hand in hand. In other words, the self-styled defenders of justice will inevitably sip cocktails with those whom they once branded as “evil.”

Bill Clinton, the liar and war criminal, who now parades around as a sage of political wisdom, will invariably sit with those whom he has insulted in the past, recognizing the similarities he shares with them all — a taste for exploiting the southern hemisphere, promoting war, and breaking well-established norms of justice. If this were something resembling a reasonable society, this would hardly be the case. The political class does not care about popular interests, just as they didn’t in the time of Caesar or Shakespeare.

It’s curious that we think there is something different about our own time. O March 7, 2008

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A Luxurious Treat: Tea at Upstairs on the Square

BY

LAUREN LEE

I

feel like I must say this up front before you read this review and get all excited to go to Upstairs on the Square only to be put off by these two details. So here is a disclaimer: First of all, you must love pink, like pink, or at least be indifferent to pink to go to Upstairs because the walls and décor of the room are all pink. If you are an uber alpha male or extreme tomboy, you will probably be repulsed.

Secondly, you must be willing to shell out $25 ($30 including tax and tip) for what is supposed to be more of a “snack” than a full “meal.” If either of these give you a stomachache, stop reading now and save yourself from being tempted by the food itself. Now, I will proceed to gush about Upstairs on the Square. Yes, I used the word gush.

Normally, I’m not much of a gushtype person, but then again, I’m also not the frilly little girl who seems to be the target demographic here. The décor is charming and playful (and very pink) and the food (despite the small portions) is amazing. The atmosphere of a restaurant rarely fazes me. No matter how lovely the interior is, if the food is bad, the restaurant still receives a thumbs-down. However, this is one of those rare establishments where the décor and the food complement and highlight each other.

Since I’m all about the food, I’ll start with that. After being overwhelmed by the sheer pinkness of the “Zebra Room” (why not the “Pink Room?”) a fellow foodie and myself both ordered the Afternoon Tea set for $25. The tea set comes with an assortment of desserts, savories (sandwiches and the like), as well as a pot of tea. The tea selection was decent, and both of the teas we ordered complemented the sweets and savories very well (I had the white tea, she the Darjeeling). I’ll admit that when our food came out, I felt somewhat queasy. Both of our tea sets arrived on a small three-tiered tray. But fear not, dear reader, 30

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because although the portions may seem miniscule, they prove to be quite satisfying, and we were quite full by the end of tea.

The savories included an assortment of dainty finger sandwiches on an assortment of breads (brioche, scone, corn, wheat, and white to be exact) and included an assortment of typical as well as unexpected fillings like tuna salad, egg salad, chicken salad, lox and cream cheese, and my personal favorite: radish and butter. Although the tubs of tuna salad, egg salad and chicken salad at delis make me cringe inwardly, oddly and mysteriously enough, the miniature salad sandwiches at Upstairs won me over. They were not overtly mayo-y and there were

rience involved my vegan cousin’s abysmal “chocolate radish cake” which was more solidified boiled radish puree than “chocolate” or ‘“cake”; in other words: traumatic.

The desserts consisted of a chocolate brownie, a dwarf chocolate cupcake, a dense chocolate cake with hazelnut buttercream, a Meyer lemon tartlette, and lastly, a pistachio cake with matching buttercream. I found the desserts a little redundant; I never thought I’d say this, but there really was too much chocolate. The brownie was the only stand-out with its denseness and fudginess.

The cupcake’s only redeeming quality was its petite size, and the other chocolate cake dessert was overpowered by the hazelnut buttercream it was served with.

The Meyer lemon tart, however, was deliciously tart and not too rich or sweet. The pistachio cake possessed all the notes of a fine pistachio flavor, but like the chocolate cake, the buttercream it was topped with was simply too rich for me.

While all of the sweets were a bit too heavy when served together, they were still quite delicious.

True to its name, the carpet of the Zebra Room is indeed zebra print, but do not be deceived because everything else is pink.

The walls are a cheery magenta, the flowers on the tables are medium pink roses, and so on. Despite the pink overload, the room was well lit with afternoon sunshine and the JWALA GANDHI utensils and light fixtures were all plenty of chopped crisp vegetables incorpo- a muted silver, adding a bit of glimmer to rated to offset the usual creaminess of the an otherwise Barbie-like room. Surprisingly, mixture. Of the salad sandwiches, the tuna the “pink everywhere” theme was tastefully was my favorite; it was refreshing with no done and it went very well with the afteroverly fishy taste. The lox and cream cheese noon tea. sandwich was good (it’s pretty hard to mess At the end of all this praise, it’s clear up), but nothing out of the ordinary. And that I would visit Upstairs again; at the same lastly, my unexpected favorite: radish and time, it’s definitely not one of the places I butter on a chive scone. It was both fresh would visit on a weekly or even monthly ba(the crisp, raw radish) and rich (the scone sis. Too much of it would reduce its charm. and butter) at the same time, while the chive After all, if Alice could visit Wonderland on in the scone accentuated both perfectly. Pre- a daily basis, even Wonderland with all its viously, I had never tasted a raw radish and marvels and surprises would lose its appeal.

I was somewhat hesitant. My last beet expe- O

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Petsi Pies A Bakery Lover’s Heaven

BY

I

EMILY ROITMAN

t’s not hard to find a good sandwich in the Medford/Somerville area. Pizza is aplenty, delicious Indian food is only a Joey ride away, and the masses of people during lunchtime at Anna’s should tell you something about the burritos in this town.

Bakeries, however, seem to be a whole different story. After moving to Boston from my hometown in New York, I was certain that I had left any semblance of quality baked goods back at home. Coming from a state that boasts Magnolia Bakery, Buttercup Bake Shop, and a bevy of other droolinducing boulangeries, my standards for sweet treats are on the higher side.

After a near catastrophe that involved a box of Betty Crocker cake mix and an incredibly high-pitched smoke alarm, I decided to venture out and explore my options. I began at Kickass Cupcakes, Davis Square’s self-proclaimed king of miniature cakey treats. However, as soon as we opened the door, the smell of greasy Chinese food wafted into my nostrils. Upon conferring with my friend, we chose to ignore the aroma of frying oil and sample the Super Chocolate and Mojito cupcakes. The dollop of frosting on the Super Chocolate was barely a bite’s worth, while the Mojito cupcake left my companion wondering if he was still sober enough to drive us home.

Throughout the next few months, I sampled sweets from the Danish Pastry House, Lyndell’s on Broadway, and Rosie’s Bakery. After perusing the area’s hotspots, I was still unsatisfied with my search, and a trip back to my hometown in December only reminded me of Butterfield Market’s giant chocolate frosted cupcakes and bythe-slice apple crumbles. At the beginning of the semester, a tip-off from a friend sent me on my way to 285 Beacon Street, a corner bakery across the street from Star Market in Somerville by the name of Petsi Pies.

As soon as I walked in I could tell that I had hit the jackpot. The aroma of sug-

ary sweetss and freshlyy brewed coffee that met me at the door was incredible; the walls were covered in homey drawings of fruits and vege t a b l e s, and redchecke r e d tablecloths adorned rned four café-style tables. Making my way to the front of the line, I scanned my eyes over the glass display case of goodies. A dozen coconut cupcakes with lush white frosting stood like miniature soldiers behind a hand-written sign. I spotted a few delicious-looking black currant and lemon glazed scones separated into a compartment near the tall pots of coffee. Gleefully, I ordered a whoopie pie and a lemon glazed scone (both of which were very reasonably priced) and headed home with my bag of goodies.

After a good-sized bite, I decided that “whoopie pie” was a fancy name for the delicious cream-filled chocolate cupcake that had found its way onto my table. The icing tasted like actual chocolate (take note, Kickass Cupcakes) and the cake was substantially rich without being too heavy. The lemon scone had the same deliciously intense texture; however, my sweet tooth decided that the whoopie pie was the real winner.

I vowed to return to Petsi’s for a namesake treat: a Southern-style pie.

The following week, I sped through my morning routine and plucked my boyfriend out of bed to head to Petsi’s before closing

PHOTO BY EMILY ROITMAN time. down We made it there jjust st in time to sit do n a cinnamon roll and a slice of apple crumb.

Unlike a traditional apple pie, this one had dots of buttery brown sugar on top of thinly sliced Granny Smith and Cortland apples. Disregarding the missing gob of vanilla ice cream that should have adorned the crumbly top, it was by far one of the best slices of pie I’ve ever had. The lusciously thick cinnamon roll seemed reminded me of the famous sticky buns at Flour Bakery in Boston. The sweet glaze added a lovely accompaniment to the roll without stealing the spotlight. After my thorough search for a top-notch bakery, I had at long last landed at the place. From the homey atmosphere to the friendly service, all of the accoutrements of my new favorite pastry shop sent me home feeling peaceful and satisfied. My hunt for the best bakery near Tufts was finally over; Petsi Pies was the sugary-scented winner. O

Petsi Pies is located at 285 Beacon St. in Somerville. It’s open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. TuesdayFriday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, and from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sunday.

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31

Techno Night at Phoenix Landing BY

CHINUA GREEN

T

that has made even the faintest etch into mainstream pop culture (the song from that Bacardi Mojito commercial was a good try), perhaps other popular imagery will give an idea of the differences between house and techno. If house had to be Rambo, Walker: Texas Ranger and Top Gun, then Terminator, Nightrider and Tron would be techno.

Having coffee at the Eiffel Tower is house, speeding down the Autobahn is techno. C3PO from Star Wars is vocal, articulate and polite — house. R2-D2 is quirky, clicks and buzzes, but has just as much personality if you pay attention — techno. If these analogies give you an idea, great; if they confuse you, all the better, as genre distinctions can become negligible.

he space is darker, shoddier, and smaller than I had expected. My eyes adjust to make out the bar counter on the left, then to the dingy chairs and tables on the right. The music swells as I near the DJ booth towards the back.

Friends surprise the DJ with a birthday cake, and slices are distributed throughout the bar.

It’s a confusing scene. LCD screens showing the latest in the UEFA Cup, the playoffs of Europe, loom above burly, bearded, and uninterested Bostonians who nurse bright blue Budweisers. Cake icing smears the shot glasses. A pale, square-jawed man leans back on a counter apprehensively, apparently staring into the crack between the bathroom door and the wall. He goes by the name Adultnapper. He’s tonight’s guest DJ, in from New York.

On Wednesday nights, Phoenix Landing, the mildmannered bar and restaurant that sits a block away from the Middle East in Cambridge, transforms into the grounds for the latest in underground techno.

The night is 19+ with a $5 cover, which doesn’t apply to women before midnight.

Located quite close to the Central Square T station, getting from the Joey to Phoenix Landing is a 20-minute trip, and requires all of a minute walking out2 semesters side. The night ends around of language 2 a.m., however, so don’t credit in 4 weeks count on the T for a ride of immersion back to Davis Square— the last train arrives around 1.

June 2-27, 2008 If you are still reading Wesleyan University this article, then perhaps Middletown, CT a brief description of the relevant music genres is in APPLY NOW! order. The stuff that goes www.wesleyan.edu/summer BOOM-tik-BOOM-tikFor more information call 860-586-2900 BOOM-tik is either house or email summer@wesleyan.edu or techno. As there hasn’t been one real techno song

Adultnapper browses his CD and vinyl collection while the warm-up DJ mixes in his last song. A few people cheer as the headliner mans the decks, but most keep dancing to the beat. To the left is a 20-somethingyear-old with a goatee, a laptop, and a video mixer. Adultnapper inserts the first CD, and the visuals multiply onto the LCD screens and burst into life. The murky walls vanish, the shapes on the screen twist, morph, and shift, and the room is no longer what it was.

Midweek Techno at Phoenix Landing is a techno night for tech-heads. What do tech-heads look like? Lesbians, Eastern Europeans, skinny nerds, young black girls, men in business suits, average Joes, aging, hardcore clubbers, and break dancers. The crowd is surprisingly diverse.That said, the night does not discriminate based on appearance — if you go to clubbing in search of a music video-fresh young lady or fellow to go home with, you may leave Midweek Techno disappointed. While none the sketchier than a party on frat row, it is not recommended for those in search of the glamorous side of nightlife.

This is not to say that the atmosphere is dangerous, but rather that the night is about attracting people interested in the music. Many of the people who go to Midweek Techno are regulars, and, judging by the smiles on their faces, crazed dancing, and brief conversations, enjoy techno to the point that they can’t be in a bad mood. You can strike up a conversation with pretty much anyone. All in all, Midweek Techno won’t disappoint fans of electronic music, as it’s definitely one of Boston’s best nights for the audience. Those not familiar with electronic music will at least be treated to something different, cutting edge and authentically underground, if nothing else. O

wesleyan university

s u m m er l anguage institute

Arabic French Russian Spanish

32

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March 7, 2008

BY

W

KRISTEN SURYA

here is the chest of a city? People live for beating hearts. It’s true, everyone wants someone’s heart.

They want working hearts and brave hearts and kind hearts. Inbound takes you to the heart of the city. And if outbound leads away then suburbs are limbs and people are blood and the world is a mush of many bodies, many cities, many hearts.

I don’t think hearts are tangible. I don’t think we can find t h e m . T h e y ’r e audible: we hear hear ts, we feel them, but unless we rip a hole into skin and muscle and bone, there’s no way to hold one. Sometimes I wor r y hear ts are so sensitive they might break if ever touched.

I worry if I get too close they’ll beat fast like butterfly. The only safe way to know a heart is to hear it, its neuroses, its faults in rhythms and pumps.

To l i s t e n closely.

A n d when I listen I hear a lonely song.

We breed loneliness here. No one in Manhattan has any personal space but I can count the lonely as faces pass. Sometimes it’s shoved deep into their pockets, the way they move their hands, and sometimes it’s the dirty ball of fuzz on their winter hats.

When I look into their eyes I see something familiar— is it a glance or maybe a stumble?

—but the lonely is feeding, the lonely is feeding and we are so hungry. *** This is the end of New York.

We were watching television on Papa’s hunk of metal. Papa is my grandfather, not my father. He lives in a brownstone that his grandfather inherited from a distant uncle almost 100 years ago. The brownstone is big and it’s empty, save for the bedroom and the cupboard in the upper left-hand corner of the kitchen. My father would have inherited this brownstone and the four of us would have lived in it if he hadn’t been a scoundrel who left New York.

Papa understands very little about

always come back, Cass. There’s no place like the city. There’s no place like home.”

Papa does not understand that everyone’s home is different.

“That’s not what I mean,” he says.

“Look closer.” And he showed me a map of Manhattan, the kind with the different districts highlighted in colors and their names in bold, the kind they tape in taxis so that tourists can feel like real New Yorkers: the Village, NoLita, SoHo, Harlem, Little India, Little Italy, “everyone has a home,” he says. “Home is a place where you can feel marvelously unique and just like everybody else at the same time. That’s New York. That’s why they all come back.”

My father did not come back. I am not coming back.

When Papa tur ned on the television and we saw the newscast, it came out of his mouth like something he’d been holding in his whole life: “Holy Moly.”

Papa doesn’t keep up with politics—it’s why I like to spend time with him—so when he saw the words THE REPUBLIC OF NEW YORK on the TV, he thought he’d hit his head. I read them for him two or maybe eight times, he kept asking “One more time, Cass, you sure you got that right?” until he sat down and we stopped talking for a while.

I think he assumed Mom and I would stay. It was a given, like his big empty brownstone, that we would watch the mass exit of fleeing Americans from our 72nd Street window with him and continue on

POETRY AND PROSE

This City, Now Country

“That’s New York. That’s why they all come back.”

My father did not come back. I am not coming back. people who leave New York. He’s lived in the brownstone his whole life, from the time he was one cell drowning-or-breathing in amniotic fluid till now, his 67-year-old bony frame filling the doorways and creaking with age. His father left the city for a short while, he told me, but he came back because “they always do.” When I asked him once who is “they,” he told me that is not the point, that they is everybody and he is they and I am they and anyone who’s ever been to New York is part of a never-ending they. “They

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33

in this place, this city-now-country, that he had watched change from the fist time his eyes opened. In that moment, I think he was most worried about his neighbors and favorite stores packing up, the ripples from the big shift that might eventually cause him discomfort. He feared a change more than a loss.

And then Mom decided, and I haven’t been to Papa’s brownstone since.

“Why?” “What kind of a question is that, Cassie, your father is out there.”

“Why?” “You were born an American, not a New Yorker.”

“Why?” “You have no idea what it’s going to be like here. Papa should come with us.”

But this is his home. And we always come back.

“I’m not saying we won’t. One day, maybe. One day, maybe you and your kids will come back. But right now, there’s not enough that we know. There’s too much we need to know and we don’t know enough of it.”

What we know is the humdrum of boxes. The sound a full cardboard box makes when it hits the floor of my apartment — it’s a thud I became familiar with.

We box everything, everything goes. And when everything in the house is boxed, Mom drives to the storage center in Harlem 34

THE OBSERVER

March 7, 2008

and picks up things I didn’t know we had.

Some of the things she brings home are my father’s, the scoundrel, and when we pack them up she doesn’t even hide her frowny, sobby face.

“He was a scoundrel,” I tell her.

“He was, he was.” And the tears have a steady fall.

I don’t know how to cure my mother’s loneliness. Mostly I fear she lives inside her head and that her neurons run around telling each other things she can never tell me.

I see them running sometimes behind her eyes, privy to a world I know nothing about.

I see the lockdown from the outside. Her small teeth, pursed lips, her gaunt jaw… I take them for granted on her face, but when I bother to notice they tell a story about a mother I both want to cradle and want nothing to do with at the same time.

My friends pack up and leave or pack up and move into bigger apartments. For every family that leaves there’s a new piece of real estate on the market. I waltz pass the brownstones on Papa’s block, too scared to knock on his door, and watch the FOR SALE signs multiply. They’re everywhere, on the doors of brownstones but also in the window of my building, in the windows of stores and offices and Park Avenue penthouses. The signs start to take on a life of their own and they eat the city, FOR SALE chomps down and takes a bite out of Manhattan, it owns New York. The signs get bigger and

bigger and more and more desperate, more exclamation points to drive the point home, FOR SALE!!!! , until the sale is so sad it’s scary and what’s scarier is that no one wants to be a New Yorker anymore.

It’s scariest when the signs disappear and behind the windows are empty apartments, abandoned plastic spoons, and the smell of flight. Papa’s the only one left, the only man on his block maybe, and I worry about him.

I ask my mother every day. “Let’s take him.”

“He’s not g oing to come, Cassie. His will is iron about this place. He thinks New York is going to be the greatest country in the world.” She says it as though she’s talking about a crazy person, but that’s my crazy grandfather caught in her insult.

I imagine a forced invasion. I picture Mom and me grabbing Papa, emptying out the kitchen cupboard and leaving his bed and the brownstone— “I don’t think you understand, Cassie.

Papa won’t be grateful if you make him come. He’ll just be angry. He wants to be here.” And her eyes aren’t even sorry that he wants something else, she’s not even apologetic that Papa lives trapped inside his four walls and I start to think the reason she’s not sorry is because she’s trapped in four walls of a different kind. And then I wonder if walls are inherited.

Days tick themselves off. Sometimes I feel like I’m wasting time just sleeping, and other minutes I’m trapped on this island, I’m glad we’re leaving, because what’s a few square meters of city surrounded by sea when there’s the land, the great expanse of land, out there to be discovered? But at the end of the day when I lie in my bed the last thing I see is a gigantic calendar (I’ve drawn it so many times with my eyes that it’s tattooed to the ceiling) and I can only think one down, one more down.

The day before I leave I don’t know the difference between killing time and spending it. Mom is crying in the house, she’s making coffee and crying, she’s crying in the shower, she’s crying all the time and it makes me

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want to call the police but there is no police now and the phone is disconnected anyway.

She tells me to go say goodbye, and I don’t know who I’m supposed to say goodbye to. Is it my friends, is it Papa, and I realize I can’t choose one thing so I say goodbye to

and I are lovers, chest to chest, listening to heartbeats. But only one heart beats and the other sound I hear, coming from underground, coming from the sewers and pipes, is just an echo of everything I’m waiting to understand. And somehow the

pieces I’ve put together.

“Kiddo,” he says, “Papa’s heart is always with you.”

There are no hearts, only chests, and when he hugs me I want to hear the same hollow as I did on the street. But when I

I imagine a forced invasion. I picture Mom and me grabbing Papa, emptying out the kitchen cupboard and leaving his bed and the brownstone.

nobody and everybody at the same time the only way I know how.

I stand on the grounds of the Trinity Church cemetery, a barrel in my throat and ache in my belly. I get down on the ground and I feel like I could unzip my jacket and press my bare ribs against the cold cement and lie here like we’re lovers, Manhattan

ramblings in my head beat into my heart and the sound bounces into the ground and I hear the bounce and I look up and I can see something I couldn’t before. It’s like fire: the only thing that strikes my heart is Papa, the only thing I think about is Papa, and the day before I leave I’m half running, half leaping to the brownstone to save the

press my ear against his ribs I hear a thump, a thump and gush, and though the sound should feel delicious it just makes me even more frightened. *** We’re driving outbound and it feels like going backwards.

“How much longer, Mom?” O

On Time so. hue. min. how. clocks. tick. the. seg. ment. ed. chops. chip. like. man. tame. da. whorl. da.

But you see we miss everything! The fine details garbled by the tock cacophony.

Freckles and moles unseen on shopping carts, escalators, bricks. Unseen in reflections, red hats, balloons. In the black speck of wild hippity hoppity sugar-white bunny tails. Lisa passing by outside saying “I’m cold.” Her teeth chattering while she hugged herself, cupping her left elbow, a perfect wrinkle where the inside of the arm tickles.

Must go to class now, tame. tick.tock.

—BY ALEX BLUM This week’s featured artist is Rachel Tan. Rachel is a sophomore majoring in Art History.

March 7, 2008

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35

CAMPUS

College Bullets Lincoln’s Letters

The Art and Ethics of Translation Friday, March 7 at 6:30 p.m. in the Coolidge Room: Keynote by award-winning poet Peter Cole.

4th Annual Emerging Black Leaders Symposium Saturday, March 8 at 10:00 a.m. in Cabot Auditorium: Keynote by Reverend C.T. Vivian

Gill Lecture Series: The Beginning of the Long Civil Rights Movement with “Plenty of Oppositions” Tuesday, March 10 at 5:00 p.m. in the Coolidge Room: The final talk on African-American History in honor of Professor Gerald Gill

blotter

police

Wednesday, February 27 At 5:00 p.m. TUPD officers received a call from an off-duty Medford officer who saw someone break into a vehicle and then flee the scene in his own car.

The offender smashed the window to get into the car and stole a GPS system, however he left a satellite radio and a laptop in the vehicle. The officer was able to get the license plate number of the car fleeing the scene, which was traced back to a Medford resident w h o is now being charg ed w i t h breaking and entering a motor vehicle and larceny over $250.

The broken-into car belongs to a Tu f t s faculty member.

Saturday, March 1 At 2:50 a.m. TUPD officers responded to a lockout call in Sophia Hall. While helping the student back to his room, officers observed half a keg of beer outside in the hall, near one of the suites. Since no kegs are allowed on campus, the alcohol was confiscated.

—Compiled by Molly Posner 36

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March 7, 2008

The University of Rochester has decided to share 72 letters penned by Abraham Lincoln that the university had in its library archives. The proposals concerned the suggestion made by Lincoln to buy slaves for $400 apiece under a “gradual emancipation” plan that would bring peace at less cost than several months of hostilities. The letters were scanned and posted online, along with transcriptions, contextual essays written by graduate students and lesson plans designed to help teachers. The project made its debut on February 18, Presidents Day. Brian Fleming, the librarian who is heading the online project, said that the documents are “very compelling” and allow others to see the situation the 16th President faced.

Campuses Adopt Text Alerts After the massacre at Virginia Tech last year, colleges across the nation scrambled to improve all aspects of their crisis management systems. One solution that Tufts and other colleges came up with was the use of emergency cell phone text message alerts to students and faculty.

However, although over 500 schools now employ this system, the enrollment for students is less than 40%. Students seem to recognize the use of such safety measures, and tragic reminders such as the recent shooting at Northern Illinois University remind everyone that the need is real. Even at Virginia Tech, four in ten students still haven’t signed up for the text message alerts. Possible explanations include the invincibility that many young adults feel and the reluctance to give out personal information.

—Compiled by Molly Posner

News On the Hill: Tufts-New England Medical Center is now officially Tufts Medical Center. A $1.5 million advertising campaign is on the way to announce the change.

PARTING SHOT

All: TASA’s annual culture and dance performance. Erin Baldassari

Tufts Observer Since 1895

www.tuftsobserver.org Tufts University P.O. Box 92, Medford, MA, 02155